More Audible notes
: Audible just put up the first Presidential debate for free. I plan to listen again. If you see a pencil-necked geek running down a street in New Jersey too early screaming at the air about terrorism and the French and all that, check to see whether he’s listening to an iPod before coming to the conclusion that he’s nuts.
: Audible just put up the unabridged version of Bill Clinton’s autobiography. I listend to the abridged version, which he read, and enjoyed it. This version is 24 hours long. Even for a Clinton fan….
: I have been trying to listen to David Brooks’ Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There. I praised Brooks to high heaven below and said when he’s good he’s great. What I left unsaid this time is that when he’s bad he’s awful. And I can’t get through Bobos. It’s not just his presentation — with all the amateur actors’ emoting of a guest-star spot on The Love Boat — it’s his worldview. He thinks that America used to be run by an aristocracy and so now he’s surprised it is run by bohemians. I don’t know where Brooks is from (he went to the University of Chicago) but he sounds like an Upper East Sider who never left and never met anyone who didn’t go to Choate.
The problem with a bad audiobook is that it’s like being stuck in an elevator with somebody boring. They won’t shut up. They just keep droning. Like Brooks himself, when an audiobook is good, it’s great; when it’s bad, it’s a bore.
