Book Reviews by a Fan of Stephen King

I've been posting book reviews at Goodreads for the past four years... sometimes off-handed, but always heartfelt. Reading them as a whole, all on one page -- which you can do right here -- reveals some disturbing things about my character. For example:

• I like to be "entertained" and invent drinking games
• I absolutely love Harper Lee
• I absolutely hate "Pride and Prejudice"
• I have a passionate love/hate relationship with Stephen King

Of course, Stephen has no idea I exist. Still, I've been hyper-critical of the author in some of my reviews, and a feeling of King-like dread enveloped me recently when I saw his name appear on my phone's caller ID display at work.

And of course, I answered -- I mean, you always open the door at the top of the stairway when you're alone in the house, right?

The fellow on the other end of the line sounded, in fact, like the real Stephen King. Everything he said, however... a blur of words about a concern that I dutifully took notes about and sent to Verizon's Customer Service department... sounded not-at-all King-like.

Finally, I broke character before saying goodbye. I assured him I would look into his concern, but then added that I had recently listened to both "Finders Keepers" and "The Bazaar of Bad Dreams" using Amazon's Audible app (and, in fact, would have given them both 4 stars had I reviewed them on Goodreads -- although I didn't mention this). I still think King's stories are too long -- but, really, what's so wrong about settling in to a good long story, well told? It's one of life's luxuries, for free.

"I'm a big fan," I said, lamely.

"Well, thank you," the man on the other end of the line said politely, adding, "My own favorite is 'The Stand'." 

Shortly afterward, I heard back from Customer Service about the resolution.

"By the way," I started to ask, "was that...?"

The Customer Service manager simply laughed in anticipation. "Oh, no," she said, "that wasn't THE Stephen King."

"Oh, of course not," I said. "I didn't think so."

But yet another disturbing thing about my character is that, really, I did.

The Half-Life of Carly Simon

Boys in the Trees: A Memoir by Carly Simon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Half-Life of Carly Simon

This is an enjoyable listen – and I do mean listen, since the audio version of this autobiography is read by the author and includes a musical score woven throughout – about the first half of Carly Simon’s life.

The narrative basically ends in 1984, when Carly (as I’ll take the liberty of calling her) visits the obnoxious CEO of the publishing company that bears her father’s name. Suffice it to say, I’m very glad that this book has been published by Macmillan.

Still, it’s an enchanting read – in the same way her 1988 song “Let the River Run” (too current to be mentioned in this book) can enchant you with lyrics that, while poetic and evocative, don’t necessarily make sense if you think too much about them.

That’s exactly what happens with the writing here too. It so often, and sometimes infuriatingly, lapses into semi-poetry. But Carly uses just enough significant detail about the often-shocking incidents of her life that you feel compelled to keep reading (or listening).

Charmed or bewitched, I stayed for the whole show… a “final” chapter, an epilog, then two more “chapters” (a song and a legal disclaimer). Her stories took me back to high school and the anthems of my first girlfriend -- from first kiss (“Anticipation”) through breakup (“That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be”). I never knew that Carly passed right underneath my first apartment in New York one night on her way to confront James Taylor’s lover. I recalled, years ago, first hearing her cover of Cat Stevens’ “Into White,” and thinking, “Wow, that’s random.” After listening to this book, I learned it wasn’t random at all.

So, for a few hours, I got to hang out with the cool kids, and realize that, hey, they’re just people too. In fact, even though Carly still loves him, good ole’ JT is a bit of a self-centered jerk, isn’t he? But then, the same might be said of me – and I’ll really have to hustle to contribute even a sliver of as much beauty to the world.

I’m awestruck by anyone who can look back on life without having to say, “I wish I had done that.” I appreciate, and admire, that Carly’s half-life makes for a pretty full, and memorable, book.

It will certainly be in my head the next time I visit Martha’s Vineyard. I’ll wander hand-in-hand with my wife on some street Carly might happen to be… and she won’t even know that we passed right by her.

View all my book reviews

Remembering a Friend in Bushwick

Longing and passion on the streets of Brooklyn. Case Maclaim.

Until yesterday, I had not been to the Bushwick section of Brooklyn since February 1987. Both trips were work-related; each was very different.

In 1987... I was newly working in the PR department for New York Telephone, and an electrical fire in a central office on Bushwick Avenue had just knocked out phone service to 41,000 people in one of the poorest, most neglected neighborhoods in New York City.

A town car had whisked me late at night past police barricades to a makeshift "command center" -- a cramped RV, where I was to spend the next few days at the side of Robin Flowers.

Robin was a big man with a deep, infectious laugh. Everyone who knew Robin loved him. Working at his side -- as we answered calls from reporters and he filled me in about how our PR department worked and taught me a bit about telecommunications technology -- has always been a highlight of my career.

Robin spent only a year or two more at New York Telephone. He left us to work at AT&T, where he'd eventually become a PR vice president, but not before keeping a promise to take me out and get me good and drunk one night if we ever got out of Bushwick alive.

Robin in 2002.

I scared the hell out of my wife the way I stumbled home early one Saturday soon afterward, and she was subsequently a bit wary at the mere mention of Robin's name. Between that and the fact that he would soon be bound for even bigger things, and I lost touch with him a few years later.

Then one day in 2012, out of the blue, I heard the news that Robin had died, after and long and courageous battle with MS.

In 2016... I found myself unexpectedly back in Bushwick. Now working in the PR department for Verizon, the successor to New York Telephone's former parent company, I had met my colleagues at a private club in Chelsea to set off for a Friday of team-building and creative discovery. The agenda was a mystery.

A cramped party bus whisked us over the Manhattan Bridge -- and, suddenly, there I was in the same neighborhood where I first worked with Robin.

I thought of him immediately -- and yet everything else about Bushwick had changed. It wasn't dangerous. It was bathed in bright light, mixed with stray snowflakes. We were in the midst of the Bushwick Collective, an outdoor street gallery, with vibrant murals from some of the world's best street artists. 

I marveled, in particular, at a hyperrealistic work by Case Maclaim from Germany. He had painted a beautiful, faceless couple embracing each other. The image screams with longing and passion; the woman holds on so tight that her finger imprints the skin around the man's bicep.

I started wandering down one street, trying to take it all in... when people started following me. Most thought I was leading the way; someone who knows me a little better shouted from behind: "Hey, Bob! This is supposed to be a team-building exercise. You're not supposed to be wandering off!"

We were scheduled to meet Joseph Ficalora, the Bushwick Collective's "curator," for a group tour of the neighborhood, but Joseph was late. With nothing else to do, everyone started taking photos of the street art.

Joseph tells the Bushwick Collective story.

"One by one, we're just reducing the 'cool factor' of the neighborhood," joked one of my younger colleagues, as we gazed at the sight of about 20 corporate communications managers on the hipster streets taking selfies and us-ies and photos for Instagram.

Another younger colleague was creating a Snapchat story.

"I don't like Snapchat," I said. "Nothing about it lasts."

"That's the whole point," he replied.

Finally, another colleague wandered into a local bar -- and everyone followed her, to wait for Joseph there.

Everyone but me. I wandered away again. I ducked around the corner and found a patch of white outside the frame of another work of art. It was an inadvertent brush stroke near the sidewalk.

So I bent down...

I bent down because this is what art is all about. It's not about Snapchat; it's about durable pigments.

I bent down... and added my own mark. I dug my pen into the splash of white, and carved the initials R and F into the wall.

Remembering Robin Flowers. He made a difference, and I want people to know that. Forever.

PR 101: How to Train Your Dinosaur

There's a bit of Walter Mitty in everyone and, over the years, I've found that an appreciation for whimsy can be a useful thing. Even in business.

Especially in business.

I write "over the years" because a friend who retired from Verizon's PR department recently texted me this photo of something he had saved in his files since 1998:

It's pretty funny too -- except for the part where the dinosaur is actually named Bob. In PR, the visuals can kill you.

So I was contemplating the deeper meaning of a decades-old Gary Larson cartoon when I ran into a work colleague early this morning.

"You at CES last week?" he asked.

CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, is held each January in Las Vegas. This year, it attracted 170,000 people, including the usual mix of marketing and PR professionals.

"No, I'm not allowed in Vegas," I joked.

In truth, because my job is focused on financial PR, there's little reason for me to attend. And in fact, don't tell anyone... after all, what's written in Jersey, stays in Jersey... I've never been to Las Vegas in my life.

"But didn't I see you there last year?" my colleague replied, confused.

A routine response would have been, "No, not me. You must be thinking of someone else." Then sulk about who he could have mistaken me for.

But, over the years, I've learned that not taking yourself too seriously can keep your inner dinosaur at bay. I simply looked bemused.

"Not allowed in Vegas?" he repeated. "I swear I saw you there last year."

I finally offered a faint, fleeting smile.

"Precisely," I said.

Bob Varettoni, inscrutable to the last.

A Year in Review, According to Instagram

A new online tool allows you to see your most-liked Instagram posts in 2015.

If I can identify a pattern in my posts, it's a feeling of isolation and looking into the distance. Interestingly, the photo of Nancy taking a photo from a scenic overlook was more popular than the photo of a Daily News photographer taking a photo of Pope Francis right before my 15 seconds of fame.

Most of the most-liked posts were taken toward the end of the year -- one that has been blessedly eventful. When I look back on some images from early in the year, I can't believe they are really from 2015. It already seems like years ago.

Here's to an eventful, and happy, 2016. I hope to record many more things here in the years to come.

You haven't seen anything yet.

Surrounded by Angels

Every year, on Christmas Eve, I hear my uncle tell the story of an angel appearing to a man named Joseph in a dream.

It's the Gospel reading for the Christmas Vigil Mass. Ever since my dad died a decade ago, my own small family always travels with my mom to visit his older brother, a retired Catholic priest... and we celebrate Mass together, with the same readings, every Christmas Eve.

And every year, I identify with Joseph. When my uncle reads the Gospel, I see angels all around the small dining room table of his childhood home.

I see where dad used to sit when I was a boy. I see the chalice where my grandmother always placed the salt shaker, just out of reach from my grandfather. From where I sit, I still see his outstretched arm, and I still see my grandmother in the kitchen, still secretly stifling a laugh.

Mass ends, and we joke about the lack of a homily and the lack of a collection -- and my uncle turns a bit wistful about the lack of music.

We may be too bashful to sing, but I sometimes want to tell my uncle that, every year, I still hear his own uncle -- my grandmother's talented brother -- playing piano in the living room.

Found in NJ: Greetings From Asbury Park

Asbury Park's abandoned carousel pavilion.

Few places in my home state are as haunted by the passage of time as Asbury Park.

Years ago, when my wife was editor of her high school yearbook, she arranged a trip there so the staff could have their photo taken on the town's famous carousel.

Today, the pavilion is gutted. All the entrances are chained, but you can still poke your cell phone through the iron bars to take a photo of where 72 fiberglass animals used to spin. Against the black back wall, a New York street artist, Harif Guzman, has painted a bold mural of a crowd of stylized faces outlined in white.

Images from Asbury Park, Dec. 13, 2015.

With Asbury Park's rich and sentimental history, its scars of hurricane damage, and its odd mix of abandonment and rebirth in close proximity, I felt something of New Orleans in the air when I visited there last weekend.

Since then, I've been caught in the undertow of this small city by the Jersey shore. I haven't been able to stop thinking about its sights and sounds (thank you, Stone Pony) and boyhood memories (thank you, Mom and Dad).

It's no surprise to me that Asbury Park is home to a diverse collection of photographers, artists and writers. This past Sunday, I met some of these talented people at The Collective Art Tank on Bangs Avenue, a co-op where "creative minds can learn art, teach art, talk art and live art…collectively."

I participated in a writing workshop sponsored by @jerseycollective, an Instagram account that's a collaboration among NJ photographers (hello, @suzanne_ap, @joepartusch, @toxictinsgallery and friends). As Jersey Collective described on Tumblr, "We thought it would be fun to try something new and have an event centered on a different form of creativity besides photography... We started off with a warm-up: we all wrote for three minutes using one of the photographs from our gallery show as the inspiration. Then we talked a little bit about how we approached the exercise."

I found the writing easy to do. That's me at the bottom of the photo below, jotting a quick few lines about the warmup exercise photo by @crunchygirl: "Feet first... toes out of water... I tried to walk, but fell on my back."

I was more introspective during the main exercise, choosing to write about a black-and-white photo by @robsociety.

I wrote:

I've never once, in my entire life, put a quarter into a public pair of binoculars to see a better view. I think, after all, this is one my character flaws. I'm not adventurous enough. 

I take things at face value and accept them blindly. I'm afraid to put my eye against the lens and turn the dial for a clearer view. 

I think, perhaps, if I did put my eye to the lens... that the world would be looking into me. That I would be the one under the microscope. How many others, I wonder, have fallen victim to this trick? How many inner secrets do these binoculars know? 

So I prefer this uneasy truce: I won't put a quarter into you... if you turn a blind metallic eye and keep my secrets too.

Again, I found this easy to do -- which was a bit disappointing. As I've grown older, I fear I may have become a bit of a hack. One of my life's goals is to write something that might always be remembered. And I simply can't do with an off-handed wave of my pen.

Like Asbury Park, I find myself haunted by the passage of time. Someday it may be too late to create something of lasting value. But I intend to keep trying.


Here's one last reflection on a photo, the one where I'm taking a selfie in the mirror at The Collective Art Tank:

Time is closing in all around me, but I refuse to be trapped. 

I was born and raised in New Jersey. 

I know my way to water.

This is the first post in a series that spotlights interesting locations in New Jersey.

Found in NJ: Fairmount Cemetery

On a gentle bluff overlooking sometimes un-trafficked Route 517 in Tewskbury, this cemetery is thrice removed from any easy Internet search. For one thing, there's a much larger Fairmount Cemetery in Newark. For another, even this site is different than the Fairmount Presbyterian Church graveyard, just across the street. And finally, even the church across the street is often confused with another church -- currently up for sale -- just up the road at an intersection with a traffic light.

When I visited yesterday, I said a prayer at a gravestone etched with the image of a soldier, Brian Varsalone, who died before his 26th birthday in 1992. An hour later, Google hauntingly sent me a message that it had auto-edited the photo I took there.

The gravestone read, "I am home in heaven, oh so happy and so bright. There is perfect joy and beauty in this everlasting light..."

View other photos I took of Fairmount Cemetery here.

Morning in New Jersey

This morning, seemingly in the blink of an eye, the trees were already bare in my hometown.

Just one week earlier, their branches had been ablaze in contrasting shades of red, yellow and brown. But as Election Day dawned, only streams of toilet paper remained on the tree outside the polling place at the library.

This particular tree had been teepeed in the tradition of Goosey Night (or Mischief Night, if you're not from Passaic County), the night before Halloween. There's no longer any widespread evidence of Goosey Night pranks in litigious 2015, however; just neighborhoods letting their children playfully mark their own property.

Seasons change; times change -- yet inside the library I was greeted by the same group of Election Day volunteers who I see year after year. None were young more than 20 years ago, when I first moved here, but none seem to have aged in the meantime.

It's as if people who volunteer at the polls have somehow managed to suspend time -- the same way the waiting list never seems to winnow at a nearby nursing home where a relative hopes to soon reside. In New Jersey, if you want to live forever, just get your name on the waiting list for Marian Manor.

After voting, I noticed pagan and Christian images competing with each other on a nearby street. An elaborate Halloween lawn display has been set in the shadows of Ascension Church.

This is New Jersey. Nowhere else in America are so many contrasts in such close proximity to each other. My home state is a land where rural, suburban and urban extremes coexist almost side by side. It's also a land of paradox, where everything changes quickly and nothing changes at all.

On Instagram (@bvarphotos) and Tumblr, I explore and document my love for the state, and I invite you to follow me there.

Meanwhile, another morning in New Jersey has come and gone. It leaves me hopeful, because I know things can change in an instant here and there's something unexpected around the next corner.

As our poet-laureate sings, "Show a little faith, there's magic in the night."

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