Product Description
From a strip club in Indiana to ritual gatherings near Austin, Texas—from Brooklyn in the 50s to L.A. in the 90s—Michael Ventura takes us on a tour of the American psyche and speaks out on a civilization in seeming agony.

This is the only collection of one of America's original writers observing and pondering the implications of the current state of the American psyche. His grasp of war, jazz, religion, and death are of "uncompromising spirit", says Andre Codrescu. "The Report on Endarkenment," says Robert Bly, "is the greatest essay written by a member of his gengeration." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Messages from a place where few dare to tread
Since first stumbling across Michael Ventura's work, I've done my best to read as much of it as possible, both his fiction & non-fiction. He has clearly descended into the underworld more than once, wrestled with demons, soared with ecstasies -- and returned to report it all in prose that's psychologically & spiritually rich. And by "spiritually," I don't mean some vague, vaporous, undefined vista of fluffy clouds & golden sunbeams & skimmed milk niceness that might have been produced by Thomas Kinkade! When you genuinely encounter the Gods/the Psyche/the Mystery, it's a struggle with immense forces both destructive & redemptive ... and the redemptive side might demand far more of you in the end.

This series of essays about America in the late 1980s-early 1990s examines the soul of the country, the unconscious hopes & fears of its people. His writing on the Gulf War might have seemed out of date in the years immediately following, but the disaster in Iraq has made it all terribly relevant again. The same is true of his writing about the scarred, yearning, tormented soul of America itself. He has seen the darkness coming & done his best to prepare us for it.

And his more personal essays wind up having just as much to tell us as those on wider topics. Ventura is nothing if not passionate! That's clearly his blood & sweat on every page, torn from his wounds, his wonder, his ever-searching soul. He's uncompromising without ever becoming dogmatic or off-putting, and he'll always make you think. Sometimes you'll want to embrace him, sometimes you'll want to shake him in a rage -- but you won't be unmoved.

Clearly the time is ripe for a collection of his more recent writing, which can be found in various places online. Until that happens, though, this potent volume is your best introduction to his non-fiction work. This is a truly American voice, prophetic & anguished & still somehow hopeful. Most urgently recommended!

A Student
Michael Ventura teaches at my school. Often he has read things to us in his writing class, and sometimes they have been things he himself has written. He is incredibly wise, wheather he knows it or not, and is a voice that should be heard. Buy this book because, and trust me on this as a student of his, you will not regret it.

The New American Bible--Once
This collection of essays blew my mind in a big way when I first stumbled onto them in the early 90s.Of course, I was a fan of Ventura's "LA Weekly" column, from which many of these essays come.And Venturaread these essays on Pacifica's KPFK here in Los Angeles, so hearing hismagnetic voice read these be-boppin jazz-style essays was a double plus. No one else, at that terrifying time in America, seemed to be saying thethings that needed to be said about the Gulf War, mental illness, the factthat our jobs are killing us, and the need for a spirituality of compassionin the barren American landscape of the post-Reagan years.Ventura'sessays on Las Vegas are fun.I re-read them every time I venture off toSin City.I often have my students read Ventura's essays to see what voiceand presence in writing are all about--he's got it.

These essays nowmight seem a little bit dated and heavy-handed; but they can still pack awallop to the sophomoric mind and those just starting to struggle with lifeissues--Ventura is perfect for those in their 20s--or their midlife crisis. Put on a Mingus or Parker CD while you read, and it'll be quite anexperience.

Ventura is a truly American voice on par with Dos Passos orRandolph Bourne (who? )

multe bene
havnt read it yet... but needless to say its a good book..

Letters At 3A.M.: Reports on Endarkenment
I not only have read this book, but I also work for the publisher.

To start, I would like to say that this book is not out of print.

Personally, at Spring Publications (the publisher) we do somepretty heavy, dry writing. But Michal Ventura lightens things up just a bitwith his looks into the American way of life. His essays range in topicfrom the neo-pagan rituals that he has participated (The Witness Tree) into his own alcholism (In Defence of Alchol). (in his words, "I don'tlike to drink alone, I love it.")

For anyone looking to find goodleft in America, Letters at 3 A.M. is just the thing. In my eyes, it is oneof the top five books I have ever read. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Powerful, interesting
What a pleasant surprise. Great writing, powerful images and thoughts. At one point, the main character begins to slip into insanity. He starts to regain his emotional footing when he decides he just doesn't give a damn whether he's nuts or not. Wow.
The writing is crisp, the character is both tortured and honest -- you sometimes feel you're inside his head as he struggles with inner voices, nihilism, loneliness, confusion. To Ventura's credit, the book also stays true to the character, and doesn't betray his basic decency at any point. This is a great book.

one of the best
ventura has opened my chest and massaged my heart while also opening my skull and exciting my mind..thisranks as one of the best books ive read in the past decade..on my second journey through it now..may not be for everyone but its not only for middleaged complex men who think,wonder,question,ache and search..i love this book..try it...the viewpoint is original,interesting,helpful,truthful,beautiful

little men made out of sushi couldnt have done better....
This man is absolutly brilliant and his brain is an enigma to most all of our modern mindsets. If you want to peek into a still water image of the path western culture is marching, reading this book will most definatly begin the process. This is not a book that will sing you to sleep, and dont expect to ever, EVER look at the zoo the same agian. Mr.Micheal is a teacher at my school, though "teacher" dosent correctly capture his function from 8 to 10 am, in our 16 year old lives. As a person who has been privledged enough to converse with the man representing this complex and truthful perspective on the world we share, i advise all of you strongly on this book. Although don't expect to find any kind of instint gratification, the man dosent know how to spoon feed. enjoy the clarity.

little men made out of sushi couldnt have done better....
This man is absolutly brilliant and his brain is an enigma to most all of our modern mindsets. If you want to peek into a still water image of the path western culture is marching, reading this book will most definatly begin the process. This is not a book that will sing you to sleep, and dont expect to ever, EVER look at the zoo the same agian. Mr.Micheal is a teacher at my school, though "teacher" dosent correctly capture his function from 8 to 10 am, in our 16 year old lives. As a person who has been privledged enough to converse with the man representing this complex and truthful perspective on the world we share, i advise all of you strongly on this book. Although don't expect to find any kind of instint gratification, the man dosent know how to spoon feed. enjoy the clarity.

WATCH OUT SISTER!!
This is not a book to be read for fun.Or a book to read for the satiation of hunger.If you decide to step into the world that Michael Ventura is expressing, bring only those questions which live inside you and which you are not only afraid of, but a bit surprised by.There, go, be free.I'm not joking anymore than I'm serious. But this book is outstanding and extremely particular.It ain't the type of book you recommend as good or bad.And I'm not sure what five stars have to do with it either. ... Read more

Product Description
"Finally somebody has begun to talk out loud about what must change, and what must be left behind, if we are to navigate the perilous turn of this millennium and survive."--Thomas Pynchon. Hillman is the author of numerous books, including A Blue Fire and Re-visioning Psychology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Two pseudo-intellectuals doing so much navel-gazing they're almost looking out their backsides...
Reading this book I thought of another, somewhat similar text that blew me away one day when I was about 14 years old. It was called "The Savage and Beautiful Country" by a therapist named Alan McGlashan. The book description reads "a sensitive view of the modern world and of time, of our memories and forgetfulness, joys and sorrows. He takes the reader on a safari into regions that are strange and yet familiar - into the savage and beautiful country of the mind. No "cures" are offered, but we are provoked to reflect on our roles and attitudes in the contemporary world..."

I thought it was profound. I thought it was deep. I was hooked. I'd found my copy in a library, but in this time before the Internet or the ability to order any out-of-print book easily I moved heaven and earth to find a copy. Eventually I did.

Years later I found the book in a drawer and reread it. And I wondered why my fourteen- or fifteen-year-old self ever thought this title was so damned profound. Well, I knew, really. When you're 14 and your world-view is fairly narrow, you're deeply impressed by all the "insights" and "observations." After you're older and you've lived life, had jobs, been promoted, demoted, fired, loved, hated, dated, rated, flattered, pattered and smattered, annoyed, buoyed, and overjoyed, you find yourself reading these profound "insights" and muttering, "They *pay* you to come up with that?"

Then you begin to regret you never took the schooling that would allow you to get on the gravy train.

That's a lot of my reaction to this book, wherein two navel-gazers who remind me of college philosophy majors who spend too much time sitting in coffee houses pondering whether they are sitting in coffee houses or just believe they are sitting in coffee houses, and can one really know the difference and does it matter if one can or cannot know the difference and....You just want to yell "Shaddup" and beat them with a large sock filled with manure, as Woody Allen says in Annie Hall.

It's not that I'm against navel-gazing--I do it myself--and it's not that I disagree with the book's title and overall conceit, which is what prompted me to pick it up in the first place. But these two eggheads ramble on and on, tediously and repetitiously (the book could have been half its length) beating dead horses and knocking down straw men. We get the standard "We're-All-So-Alienated-In-This-Society-Because-of-Technology" line. One of them talks about how he knows people all over the world and can talk to them at a moment's notice, but doesn't know the name of the guy who lives in the flat next door. What would have been a more interesting book is if they'd have explored whether or not not knowing the guy next door truly makes you "alienated." Why do we *assume* that it does? (I've known most of my neighbors in life and I can't say I'm a better person for it.) What's more important for a fulfilling life, friends of intellectual proximity or friends of physical proximity?That could have been an interesting examination, but these two guys rarely make it past clichés.Then we get the standard line about technology making us cold, autocratic machines. I wonder what Leonardo Da Vinci's take on that would have been. We hear about how half of all marriages end in divorce nowadays, but they gaze into their navels so hard they don't even consider that perhaps there are more divorces now not because people are less happy, but because years ago the option for splitting wasn't as viable, and that changes in technology, the women's movement, the internal combustion engine, et many a cetra, are reasons that deserve examination, rather than "We're all miserable now!"(Of course, they offer mounds of proof everyone was so happy then.)

They talk about jazz musicians and draw analogies to our hurried modern lives in ways that show they know little about both hurried modern lives and jazz. (And the claim by one of them that musicians, after they've played together a very long time, begin to merge their styles till they become hard to tell apart--aside from the "Who cares?" factor--is simply untrue. Some do, some don't, and some grow even more distinct in an attempt to differentiate themselves. It's more a matter of how they are wired when they meet than it is their being together. They also don't understand how bebop operates very well.)

I do think psychotherapy has many problems, and while not expecting the final word, I was hoping for some insight as to why. Instead I got the usual, worn out clichés about the pressures of "modern life," which have been uttered since the time of Montaigne.I get the usual suspects, and even worse, the usual suggested cures. There are a few interesting ideas here, mostly for me an early one about how perhaps rather than our early experiences shaping us for the future, we determine our future experiences by what we bring into it--sort of a restatement of the nature/nurture conundrum. I was particularly struck by their example of Hitler, who indeed looked intimidating even as a five-year-old if you've ever seen the early photographs. But even here, rather than explore this further, they just toss it in the air, don't really support it or challenge it, and then move on. Mostly I get a vibe of "Aren't we clever for talking about all this fancy stuff in the first place?" and the shrink world is already filled with enough martini-guzzling, "clever" people. You're not an "intellectual" just because you subscribe to The New Yorker and have Mozart recordings on your stereo. You're intellectual if you come up with insightful, well-backed original ideas, and put them through their paces in efforts to get deeper inside them. These guys flunk the test.

Getting worse for who?
I read this years ago when it first came out.Wrote a negative review for my club newsletter.I was very cynical about the recommendation that people simply turn off their TVs, get out of their cars, and take an interest in the people next door.I hadn't found that mere proximity led to having anything to say to people, much less to the restoration of community.

What I have learned since is that Michael Ventura had a brother, Aldo, who spent pretty much his entire adult life "insane...between tumultuous instability and flat-out madness," as Michael put it in his moving 2004 obituary after Aldo's death at 54.In a real community, in the kind of world where people take care of each other just because they are physically nearby, Aldo, who was clearly brilliant and gifted as well as crazy, might have made a contribution, certainly would not have suffered what he suffered as a madman from a poor family in New York City in the late 20th century.This is the background for Michael Ventura's perspective that our materialistic workaholic culture with its permissive social mobility, which allows those of us who are strong, healthy, clear-headed and socially presentable to abandon the rest of us, has thereby damaged the human soul by excluding the nonrational from our day-to-day experience.As a person who values said social mobility, which also allows abuse victims to get away from their abusers, I'm not entirely in agreement with him, but I find great value in the reminder that there are other facets to this jewel called freedom and some of 'em ain't so pretty.

Two guys in a bar get drunk and ...
The concept is good the presentation is terrible.

Certainly questioning psychotherapy is reasonable. But here we are witnessing a brainstorming session before the crapola is clipped, resulting in a pseudo-intellectual, pompous assortment of oversaturated negative dialectic or in Hillman's own words, "empty protest."

Yes, there are some intriguing thoughts and ideas but the complexity is ignored in favor of a shallow critical approach often given in a condescending manner.

New conceptual framework or "who cares?"
I looked forward to reading "We've Had a Hundred..." with anticipation.It is the first work by James Hillman I had chanced to read and I had been encouraged by comments about the author.As I got into the book, the anticipation quickly diminished.It became a chore to finish the work.Yet I forced myself to read on and finally completed it.I held onto slight hope that something useful and profound might be sprinkled toward the end.My hopes were for naught.There were a couple points of interest throughout the book, but nothing groundbreaking or "framework" altering in my experience.

I really do not get what they thought they were accomplishing.I suppose they did challenge the status quo of therapy.But I did not see the clear alternative they were offering in its stead.I did not see any value in any of their criticisms and saw even less value in their proposed paradigm shifts.I saw no practical value in their ideas - of course, Hillman may bristle at such an accusation preferring "idea" over practical considerations (see page 140).But what is the reader to do with what has been given him by Ventura and Hillman?Precious little is likely.

I was put off somewhat by the casual conversational tone of the work.The book is organized into three parts: two parts dialogue and one part letter compilation.The authors' interaction is oft times irreverent and sprinkled with profanity.Vulgar language isn't a big deal in common vernacular, but learned men throwing the words out is a little off putting in the context (probably just my puritanical leanings, they might suggest).The framework of the book is also a little odd considering that one of Hillman's letters emphasized the need for writing as opposed to spoken word (pages 89ff, 94ff) - this in a book that is two parts spoken word and one part written.He actually contends that spoken word is deficient for psyche searching.Hmm...

I wondered as I read what Michael Ventura's credentials were.Why should I take his commentary on the state of psychology and the world seriously?He seems to have wrestled with this question himself because he seeks to answer it in one of his letters (page 54).The answer?He has been in personal counseling for 10 years and seems to be "synchronistically" surrounded by psychologists.Heck, it appears everyone he knows soon becomes a "shrink".Certainly these things make one qualified to usher the world into a new era of psychology and therapy!Well, on second thought, maybe not.Much of his writing (unlike Hillman's) has an air of self-importance.It was his sentiment I borrowed from for the heading above, "You know the changes we want are so radical; we are scratching at the beginnings of a huge new conceptual framework" (page 208).He also wrote in a letter, "What we're tuned into, what's coming through us, is, at least in part, the beginning of the articulation of a new theoretical framework that would extend psychotherapy in particular and Western thought in general into the realms of the collective" (page 60).And it goes on.Pretty heady stuff.I was reminded of conversations with college mates where we thought we would change the world.Somehow we alone had tapped into the hidden mysteries of existence.How simple and misguided those that have gone before us (or so we must have thought)!Such letter writing and conversations always seem to happen late at night.They probably should not see the light of day (at least not in a publication such as this).

Following is a list of a few of their trailblazing ideas.1) Perhaps a child's experiences and characteristics or traits are caused by his future destiny rather than vice versa (i.e., that the experiences in childhood instead create one's destiny).Life is lived backward so to speak.Psychology starts off with an upside down premise by attributing who the person becomes to his childhood experiences (pages 16ff, 52ff, 68ff).2) Individuation is not to be centered in the self but rather must take on a communal or world view.One's psyche is linked to the world and one of the great ills is Western man's preoccupation with the individual and isolation (page 52).The authors' premises are very societal - hence the title's emphasis on the "world" getting worse.The world, animate and otherwise, is part of the psyche and must be embraced and respected.One sees ecological and environmental implications throughout.3) Pains and hurts are not to be processed.They should instead be kept and cherished.They give you your uniqueness and are your psyche's landscape.They are the source and wellspring of art and creativity.They are not sources of psychosis (page 29ff).Embrace your "madness."By embracing it, it will not overtake you.Dabble in drinking, drugs, sex, spending, eating, fornicating with banana trees (page 182), etc., because these represent your true psyche.To repress such urges is wrong and detrimental.Legalize drugs, institute brothels, etc.A recurring theme is the awful ramification of the West's Puritanism - maybe our greatest evil.It is demonized for its conformity and is referred to as "white bread" society.4) Psychology is art, not science (page 150).Its root is poetic and found in images.This creative psychology encourages our being rather than represses it.

Certainly more ideas are hinted at and dropped.I am not sure that any are really fully fleshed out or explored, however.They do not offer us a comprehensive worldview to contend with what we currently have.I could glean no new theoretical or conceptual framework from the book.We are just given a view or glimpse of the ramblings of a couple of men who ponder on the deep things of the psyche.

All in all, what's the point?After reading this work I felt like saying, "Ho hum."What difference will this book make in my life or my (or "the") world?I think none.My time is better spent living life forward and processing my experiences and demons.Thanks anyway.

Desencanto, integridad y entusiasmo
Hillman, un psiquiatra que lleva años trabajando como terapeuta, y Ventura, un escritor que lleva casi otros tantos acudiendo a terapia y tratando a terapeutas, dialogan sin pelos en la lengua sobre lo que echan a faltar en la consulta.

Básicamente, su diagnóstico es que la terapia se ha convertido en una anestesia de los problemas sociales, globales. La distorsión es múltiple: al enfocar la desazón del paciente como algo que tiene que ver sobre todo con su interior, la terapia pierde de vista lo que esa desazón podría decir sobre los problemas sociales y medioambientales; al enfocarla como resultado de los problemas con el padre y la madre durante la infancia, se pierde de vista que el malestar tiene ante todo que ver con las circunstancias actuales del paciente, y que éste no es un 'niño eterno' al que se deba ayudar a crecer, solucionándole los problemas.

El enfoque que ambos autores dan a la cuestión de los abusos infantiles se aleja tanto de la opinión común que a veces uno no sabe si aplaudir su audacia o temer por su salud física, dada la reacción imprevisible (o demasiado previsible) que una audiencia puritana puede dar a este tipo de discurso.

El libro se estructura en dos largas conversaciones, situadas al inicio y al final, y una sección central que consta de varias cartas. Las conversaciones son tan amistosas como vehementes; las cartas, deliciosamente reflexivas y matizadas. En todo momento, prima la sensación imperiosa de que hay que dejar atrás una forma ya inútil o incluso contraproducente de terapia y apostar por un discurso en el que los problemas de cada uno no se separen de los problemas de la forma de vida que uno lleva (por ejemplo: edificios deprimentes, luz invasiva e incómoda, flujo continuo de información-basura...).

El balance de la vida política estadounidense es singularmente agrio: asistimos al final de la República y el comienzo del Imperio, en el sentido de que la capacidad de los ciudadanos conscientes por intervenir activamente en política ha ido dejando paso a la concepción del votante como consumidor, cuya única opción es elegir periódicamente entre dos discursos sospechosamente idénticos e irrazonados.

En ningún momento se cede al desaliento: como Ventura explica a su hijo adolescente, incluso si vivimos en una Edad Oscura, o en el comienzo de una, es nuestra responsabilidad trasmitir a otros la belleza, el pensamiento crítico y la capacidad de discernimiento. Siempre serán necesarios. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A patchwork of thought provolking essays on American society
'Shadow Dancing' is the sum of its parts: essays confronting a variety of pressing subjects (or thought to be pressing in the 1980's) on American society.Some of the essays are stronger than others, there are a variety of interesting and thought provolking insights, but some of the idea development is spotty.However, on the whole, a worthwhile read: a kind of Celestine Prophesy of the mind at times, at others, a male empowerment how-to manual, but always an interesting and thoughtful book.Ventura is an accomplished essayist ... Read more

Product Description
Marilyn Monroe was one of the most photographed woman of the 20th century, but an enigmatic character who came to loathe the film business. This study contains many recently discovered photographs by Earl Leaf. They include those taken with Tony Curtis, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The many moods of Marilyn
A stunning book for any serious Marilyn afficianado - the photos, taken by little known paparazzi photographer Earl Leaf throughout Marilyn's career show so many of her moods, facets, expressions that it sometimes feels like you see her in an entirely new and unexpected light whenever you turn the page. Quite a few of the photographs show her lesser-known sides: her imperiousness, her toughness, her shrewdness, her ability to manipulate - all qualities she tried very hard to hide from her public but which nevertheless make her even more fascinating. Ventura's text gives some interesting insights and a uniquely lyrical point of view of Marilyn and what the images taken by Leaf's lens show of her. From her early starlet days to the years of her decline, we see her slowly eroding emotionally like an apparition fading into the light. Sometimes sad, often food for thought and always beautiful to look at, this is definitely one of the favourites in my collection. There are many images here you most likely have not seen before and will keep revisiting for many years to come.

Beautiful Book
Marilyn is captured in just about every mood possible in this book.A wonderful book for my MM collection.

Beautiful Photographs!
The pictures of Marilyn in this book are wonderful..I thought I saw them all until I got this book. I recommend to all Marilyn fans, it is a must. ... Read more

Product Description
Navy seal, professional wrestler, movie star, talk show host, governor of Minnesota -- Jesse Ventura has held all those titles in a lifetime packed with fame and accomplishment. Ventura has also earned the right to have his name linked with all those positions, especially that of governor. ... Read more

Product Description
When his schizophrenic brother unwittingly says the wrong thing at the wrong time, he reveals a secret that may link private detective Mike Rose's family and the Vegas mob to the Kennedy Assassination. Suddenly at the top of the Mafia's hit list, Mike must confront the demons in his family history while scouring the underbelly of Las Vegas--a city where the American Dream can turn into a neon nightmare.Amazon.com Review
It's 1993 in Las Vegas. They're about to blow up the historicDunes Hotel to make room for some new architectural marvel; FrankSinatra is making his last appearance at the Desert Inn; and privateeye Mike Rose is trying to keep himself and his delusional brotherAlvi alive. In this tremendous new mystery from veteranL.A. Weekly columnist Ventura, the emotional geography of Vegascomes to life as never before. Rose's parents were connected to someof the the city's darkest hours.Now, to pay off old debts andprotect fragile friends, he has to shed some blood and look under somenasty rocks. Sinatra, of course, doesn't die -- but lots of otherpeople do. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

spiritual journey in a gangster novel
I think Michael Ventura had to use the context of a crime novel to get his story published. However, this novel is really a journey of his own self-discovery. He reminds me of Herman Hesse in the way he constantly enters and exits different doors in his own psyche -- almost at random. The central character, Mike Rose, has a mentally ill older brother. So does Ventura. Avid readers of Ventura's essays know this, and it is very easy for said readers to imagine that Mike Rose is Ventura. If you just want a murder mystery, this won't work for you unless you are particularly daring -- and patient. But, if you like to see someone get to the heart of himself, take a chance. You might be blown away by Ventura's prose. Light reading, this is not, but it is very interesting.

Technicolor Noir
OK, I picked up "The Death of Frank Sinatra" as an impulse-buy $2.99 hardcover from the "used library books" aisle...so I was pretty much purchasing it by-the-pound...no expectations, other than it was Vegas-fiction and sounded fun.

Now, I feel like I owe somebody.Which is not a good feeling in the hardboiled world Ventura describes so bristlingly.

I have been turned on to a fusion of genres so rich and bountiful, that a full $24.99 pricetag seems only fair. So...if anyone wants to collect the remainder, no pistol-whipping will be necessary.

It's quite simply pulp poetry.

Crackling descriptions of the blood-in-your-urine doings of a Vegas private dick, featuring characters that jump off the page to pin your arms back while kicking your nuts and a geo-real Vegas that resonates with anyone who can "recite" the Strip from the Alladin to the Sahara and whose secret desire is to be buried at the YESCO graveyard.

It's great stuff, and if you've never heard of Michael Ventura, (cause I sure as hell hadn't) you'll soon be saying the same thing I am now..."How the hell is this guy not being read on every Flight 711, instead of Grisham?"

...

Sinatra's not the only one
The Hamlet-esque mind of Mike Rose is the hook to Ventura's "The Death of Frank Sinatra". His head whirls in the indecision of what heloves or hates and in some cases what or whom is the object of bothextremes. The italicized asides in the first person are probably thestrongest portions of the book as Rose's wannabe existentialist iscontinually crippled by loathing for himself, his past, his connections,and perhaps most of all, for Las Vegas which he believes is his puppetmaster and submissive lover all at once.

Here is the crux of the novelwhich centers on a private eye who has bathed with and been raised bymobsters but has remained on the edge of the precipice without ever trulyjumping in. It is an intriguing dilemma when his unstable brotherunwittingly blabs "too much" in front of a grizzled old Outfitveteran, although as with most of the book what is spoken is half said, ahalf truth and, well, to be blunt, only half convincing. It's all well andgood having the circle of insecurity forever turning in one's head, butsurely no group of people are as instantly tuned in as Ventura's charactersare. It seems half the time that, whoever it is, they are inexplicably ableto read their conversation partner's mind, irrespective of intelligence,age or familiarity. What we get is a series of unfinished statements andknowing glances, which doesn't quite wash.

At first, I thought theinsight into Vegas, spearheaded by the persona and rep of Frank Sinatra - anifty touch - was about as illuminating as a travel guide, but withoutreally being conscious of it, the constant bombardment and repetition ofthe town's warts and all, became quite intoxicating and ultimatelyrevealing. I was less convinced by the insider knowledge of the mob, whichseemed to focus on shock value and sensationalism, in marked contrast tothe understatement of the book's overall tone. The little nuances that areso prevalent in Scorsese's films, for example, that help to humanize andrationalize are absent for the most part here.

The plot is convoluted anddifficult to grasp with several intertwining threads that don't reallymesh. However, in truth, most of the action happens in Rose's head, sothat's not as disastrous as it sounds. Still, there seemed to be severalloose ends that Ventura was content to let lie, which was a littleunsettling.

Overall, I felt it was indulgent and melodramatic, teeteringon the edge between dark social commentary about an inately corrupt city,and simply incoherent rambling, but the well expressed sadness and stolid,if misguided defiance of the central character, along with the admittedoriginality of the style was enough to earn 3 stars. Just.

First rate
Michael Ventura really knows how to tell a story that's more than just plot or characterization, but also SAYS something. I bought this book, read it right through, and then re-read it in bits right away, just for the enjoyment of it. This is as good as it gets.

fake/phony/fraud
I was intrigued -- I thought it was an investigative report on Mr. Sinatra's final days (the tackiness of the title notwithstanding), but then I noted from the reviews quoted that this title came out *before* May 14,1998 (the day of Old Blue Eyes' death) -- meaning this was just a work offiction.Feh, pfui -- what a waste of my time!I'm interested in *real*books about Frank Sinatra, not fiction!How about someone coming out witha *good* discography? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

insightful diary
There are great nuts-and-bolts examples of Cassavetes filmmaking method, told by a person with an underlined admiration for this individual.The author really does work as the fly on the wall.I wish more of these types of journals existed for Cassavetes' other films. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Gaining Time
Bohemia is alive & kicking in Ventura's,'Nighttime Losing Time'. The writing seems to come from direct sexual & musical experience, and has the power of revelation. I'd never heard of Ventura, but noticed on the jacket that post-Jungian sage, James Hillman had endorsed it. A long time fan of Hillman's brilliant insights, I jumped into Ventura's world & came up gasping for air. It is sprawling & rabbits on in some regional Texan patois. But precious & pretentious it is not. When I'd resurfaced I sent it directly to the few friends I knew would rejoice in the sincerity of Ventura's quest for the sources of his creative gifts, the 'places where they ain't got scales.' It took a decade to revisit this book as I was anxious that the initial read may have been a chimera, a projection of my own crises. But no. Friends confirmed its originary clout. And no; it rutted in my creases yet again. It may help if you dig Butch Hancock, Terry Allen, Joe Ely, or Willie Nelson as their music is the soundtrack for Ventura's honkytonk heavies. Narrator, Jesse Wales's apocalyptic vision (p 375) swims in the blood meridian so epically summoned in Cormac McCarthy's magnum opus of that name. Unlike McCarthy's remorseless dudes destined to endlessly repeat their bedevilled lives, Wales finds regeneration and possibly redemption through understanding the meaning of the pain and loss he and his coterie share. Move over Balzac & Baudelaire, Ventura has muscled entry to the dark domains, in the breathless pursuit of ecstasy.

Not a Sensation .... A Revelation
This is a scorching first novel from a first-rate American writer about the back road, the juke joints, and the inner lives around them ---without a trace of bombast or sensationalism thatso often come with this territory.

I've done my share of Lit.101 and Great Books, yet this is the only book that came along and successfully conjured in flesh and blood the secret selves that people around me carry in concealment.

Never spent time in that corner of America myself, yet the book had made me see the world in a whole new light.

Strong stuff -- but medicine for all you seekers out there....

(Read his column too in Austin Chronicle if you like this.) ... Read more

Product Description

"Finding one particular thing at one particular time, then letting a world accumulate around it, in rough contingency, nothing quite fitting or not fitting." This is how Dave Hickey describes the work of artist and singer-songwriter Terry Allen, who creates works that proliferate into a constellation of genres as he revisits and revises his original inspirations. A painting may lead to a sculpture, which morphs into a song that takes on many voices and becomes a theatre piece or video installation. Yet, in Allen's endlessly evolving art, "nothing that you might actually see in the world is depicted, nothing is even surreal, because surrealism infers a starting point in reality. The songs are sung by disembodied voices. The stories are told by voices with regional accents. The drawings are drawn because otherwise we could not see what they are about, so they are better read as heraldry, or glyphs, or typologies than anything like pictures."

Terry Allen is the first comprehensive retrospective of this prolific artist's work. It opens with a previously unpublished celebration of Allen by Dave Hickey, then covers his three largest and most important series--JUAREZ, with critical commentary by Dave Hickey; RING, with commentary by Marcia Tucker; and YOUTH IN ASIA, with an interview of Terry Allen and commentary by Dave Hickey. It also explores Allen's other significant visual works--installations, public works and bronzes, and sculpture and works on paper. Highlighting an equally important part of the artist's oeuvre, Michael Ventura provides an insightful discussion of Allen's music. More than two hundred color and black-and-white images flow in and around the texts, providing a sweeping visual gallery of Allen's work in which, as Hickey observes, "not only are there no happy endings. There are no endings."

Customer Reviews (1)

A one-of-a-kind collection
Illustrated with striking, full-color photography of Allen's creations, Terry Allen is a coffee-table artbook compendium of Terry Allen's diversity of artistic creations - from painting to sculpture to three-dimensional created scenes and more. The text delves into the story behind Allen's wonders in meticulous detail. A one-of-a-kind collection, Terry Allen is especially recommended to anyone with a keen interest in contemporary art, and is the absolute next best thing to witnessing Allen's evocative and memorable pieces in person.
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Product Description
Word count: 764. ... Read more