Wally and Zooey
Mar. 19th, 2009 02:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovatIn this entry, I review two cool things that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bethje introduced me to. The first is Wally Cox's book, My Life As a Young Boy. I don't think it's any secret that my wife has a thing for the late Wally Cox, star of Mr. Peepers, voice of Underdog, and mainstay on Hollywood Squares. The book actually holds up quite well for something written in the sixties about growing up in the thirties, and I could identify with Wally in some situations, like his hatred of art and shop classes. Also, I was excited to learn that he was a big fan of the Oz books, which I guess were more mainstream back then (they were published annually for over thirty years between the teens and the forties, so they must have been selling pretty well), but it's still impressive to me. Wally's style in writing the book is humorous, and gives the sense that he remembers his childhood feelings and activities quite well.
The other cool thing is She & Him's optimistically titled first album, Volume One. The "She" in the band is actress Zooey Deschanel (the "Him" is M. Ward, but it's Zooey who sings lead and wrote most of the songs), and when I first heard she was coming out with an album, I thought it might be one of those "I'm a thespian who thinks they can become a pop star, because all lively arts are basically the same" kind of things, but it's really quite good. The sound is very cute and kind of old-fashioned. Incidentally, I believe Zooey also sings some backing vocals on Jenny Lewis' Acid Tongue, and I think she also decided that looking like Jenny would be a good idea for her music career. Not that I'm complaining.
bethje introduced me to. The first is Wally Cox's book, My Life As a Young Boy. I don't think it's any secret that my wife has a thing for the late Wally Cox, star of Mr. Peepers, voice of Underdog, and mainstay on Hollywood Squares. The book actually holds up quite well for something written in the sixties about growing up in the thirties, and I could identify with Wally in some situations, like his hatred of art and shop classes. Also, I was excited to learn that he was a big fan of the Oz books, which I guess were more mainstream back then (they were published annually for over thirty years between the teens and the forties, so they must have been selling pretty well), but it's still impressive to me. Wally's style in writing the book is humorous, and gives the sense that he remembers his childhood feelings and activities quite well.The other cool thing is She & Him's optimistically titled first album, Volume One. The "She" in the band is actress Zooey Deschanel (the "Him" is M. Ward, but it's Zooey who sings lead and wrote most of the songs), and when I first heard she was coming out with an album, I thought it might be one of those "I'm a thespian who thinks they can become a pop star, because all lively arts are basically the same" kind of things, but it's really quite good. The sound is very cute and kind of old-fashioned. Incidentally, I believe Zooey also sings some backing vocals on Jenny Lewis' Acid Tongue, and I think she also decided that looking like Jenny would be a good idea for her music career. Not that I'm complaining.
