This won the Booker Prize. And I was surprised. Because this is the first time I’ve ever read one of the winning books before it was anointed. Furthermore, I usually find the winning books close to unreadable. They titillate the committee, academics, but they are not for the proletariat.

But “Flesh”?

At first I couldn’t even figure out what country they were in.

And the original plot line… I would have handled it differently from the main character.

But what ensues…

Is a life.

We’re used to reading about winners and losers. Not regular people. But István both wins and loses in “Flesh,” and you don’t expect it.

The interaction with the two women after he gets out of the military, what happens in the bathroom… You never know what is inside another. Someone who looks stiff can be loose. Someone who appears easygoing can be judgmental. It’s part of growing up. You encounter different types, have different experiences, and find out where you lie on the spectrum, who you should be wary of.

And then the way things play out in the U.K…

But that’s life, you can fall into things, get lucky, and just as easily fall out of them.

So… I think the average person will be somewhat bewildered at the beginning of “Flesh.” But hang in there. Because once István gets out of the military, you’ll have a hard time putting the book down. You’ll be enthralled by this alternative universe. It’s not you, it’s not people you hang out with, but you have met people like this…who are victims of circumstance, who fall into situations both good and bad.

And the reviews all laud the lack of character description, the tropes of traditional graduate school writing, but despite that I can’t say that the words always flow, that it’s smooth. But it’s all about what happens to István, and the relationships. You’re taken into another world. You’re completely removed from your everyday world, and isn’t that what the best fiction does? And it will have you questioning what life in Eastern Europe is really like, the opportunities and lack thereof.

And I’d contemplated writing about “Flesh” when I read it over a month ago, but I thought it was a bit too outside, not for everybody, but then it won the Booker Prize and…

If you’re contemplating diving in, I recommend it.

If you’re wary…you’re on your own.

P.S. The book is so unclear and so staccato at first you think it’s a translation, but it was written in English by David Szalay

Women love Lily King. Love, love, LOVE her and her work!

But I thought her previous books… Weren’t exactly chick lit, but ultimately punted, in that they went for lowbrow predictable, satisfying the audience, as opposed to going deeper and becoming more complicated and ultimately risking alienation of the reader.

To tell you the truth, I’d about given up on her, was not going to read another one of her books. But then I read the reviews of “Heart the Lover,” reserved it on Libby and decided to give it a chance.

And for the first third it was WONDERFUL, SPOT-ON!

Now the funny thing is unlike with her previous novels, I thought I was not highbrow enough for “Heart the Lover.” You’ve got literature/writing students talking about authors and books I’ve never heard of, never mind read. I felt inadequate, I had to tell myself I knew a lot of records.

But despite that…

Yes, the first half of “Heart the Lover” is a campus novel, and many feel too old to return to those days, but King nails connection and love so well, SO WELL, that was I was riveted and smiling. Pretty soon you know what is going to happen, but you’re still eager to see it play out, how it plays out.

Ultimately “Heart the Lover” is a treatise not only on college love, but love and life in general. The choices we make… We end up in places we didn’t foresee, maybe stable and happy, but that connection from back when…we just can’t break it.

And what is most important, said connection or livability, coexistence?

The last half of the book… There’s a lot of good stuff there, but it devolves into typical Lily King territory. You want more depth… The feelings are there at times, but the plot is somewhat predictable and…

I felt the connection of love in the first half of this book. It resonated with me, it was exactly what I was looking for.

But unlike with a record album, where a few good tracks are enough, a novel must be solid, or close to it, the entire way through.

I’ve learned from feedback that many men are a lot softer than they’re portrayed. For every guy who will only read business books, needs their reading to advance them, there are many others who want a book to affect them, touch their feelings. So there’s a cadre of men who will like “Heart the Lover.” Girls will LOVE “Heart the Lover,” based on what I’ve read and traditional reaction to King’s books. It’s not a huge commitment, and I wasn’t going to write about it, but since I wanted to talk about “Flesh,” which affects you on a visceral level, which is hard to shake, I decided to put down my thoughts.

“Heart the Lover” is not a slam dunk. But it does get to you.

And…how many sacrifice their college ambitions? They’re going to be artists, set the world on fire, and they become professionals, or work for daddy’s company, sacrificing their hopes and dreams.

I’ll let you contemplate that.

Are you watching this?

We didn’t start until finishing “Death By Lightning” first, which I do not recommend, despite all the positive reviews. The dialogue is positively stilted. Just because the action took place over a hundred years ago, that does not mean people spoke in a stiff, non-colloquial way. It’s only four episodes, and we continued because we wanted to know the history, but at this point, I wish I’d just read the Wikipedia page.

“Death By Lightning” is American filmmaking at its worst. Concentrating on look as opposed to dialogue and story. Yes, “Death By Lightning” looks fantastic, takes you back to the pre-automobile days, but…

Shea Whigham as Roscoe Conklin is fun to watch, but he reminds me more of comedian Kevin Pollak than any politico I’ve ever encountered/witnessed.

Nick Offerman is such an oaf, the role of Chester Arthur is played so broadly, that there’s no way this guy could be nominated for Vice President, NO WAY!

Matthew Macfadyen as assassin Charlie Guiteau… At times delved into Forrest Gump territory. A cartoon. Sometimes he was believable, other times not.

And Michael Shannon as Garfield himself is so retiring, so downbeat, that this guy never could have been elected president, NEVER!

So when “Death By Lightning” was over I was wary of watching another American production, so I made a deal with Felice, first we’d watch an episode of “Delhi Crime,” and then one of “The Beast In Me.” I needed something foreign, to clean the palate, to keep me interested.

And it was fun to see the old characters in season 3 of “Delhi Crime,” although the human-trafficking plot and the constant changing of locations gave me the idea they’d run out of ideas, that maybe the series had continued too long, but it was good, and we will finish it, but then we pulled up “The Beast In Me.”

Hype. You can feel it for the new Vince Gilligan show on Apple, “Pluribus.” With news features about Rhea Seehorn and Gilligan himself. But in the modern era a series dripped out week by week is so antique. You think you’re building buzz, but in truth you’re crippling it. Because if you can binge, you get really excited about a show, there’s a lot to talk about and you do!

And people will be talking about “The Beast in Me.”

Then again, it’s hard to take the temperature of the public in today’s America. It’s hard to know what is going on.

I point you to this article in today’s “New York Times”: 

“Conservative Media Picks an Epstein Story Line and Sticks to It – Right-wing outlets have focused on a single redacted name in the 23,000 pages of correspondence related to Jeffrey Epstein that were released on Wednesday.”

Free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/business/media/epstein-trump-emails-conservative-media.html?unlocked_article_code=1.1U8.O3JY.nBEXq85oEne_&smid=url-share

I might be the only American who doesn’t really care about Epstein. After all, he’s dead. But a moralistic nation has to punish anybody attached to him and…

The release of the e-mails was all over the news on Wednesday. It dominated.

Unless you were on Fox. I scanned the website and had to scroll down, down, down for a reference, and the next day I couldn’t find one at all, although maybe if I scrolled ad infinitum…

There are two different narratives here. And that’s laughable, since it was the Republicans who were so interested in Epstein and the e-mails/information.

So what’s a poor boy to do?

They used to play in a rock and roll band.

Now they scroll TikTok and watch streaming television.

And “The Beast in Me” is now number one on Netflix, America’s, the world’s, number one streaming service, and that means more people are exposed than…are even watching cable TV news.

So you should watch “The Beast In Me,” I want to know your take.

Like “Death By Lightning” (and why that title?), “The Beast In Me” is impeccably shot. It captures the east coast feel, made me yearn for the area. The greenery, the change of seasons, the rain…

So we don’t know exactly what is up with Claire Danes’s character. And she’s portraying anxiety/nervousness so well. These tics… Is Danes the new Meryl Streep or is she always like this?

I never saw “Homeland,” but I did watch the Israeli show it was based upon, “Prisoners of War,” which the “New York Times” said was the best foreign series of the decade, and I’m not sure I agree, but it was wrenching. All I really know about Claire Danes is she was in “My So-Called Life,” a cult show before it was stripped by MTV. She was an atypical teenager, with a crush and…then Danes went to Yale and now she’s 46 with three kids. How did that happen?

But Danes demonstrates an inner strength in “The Beast In Me,” she’s got her ideals straight in her mind, even if she’s wavering on the periphery.

And then you’ve got Matthew Rhys…

Who somehow I didn’t even recognize. He was softer in “The Americans,” too soft for “Perry Mason,” but he’s so intense here…I guess I identified him more with the type than the underlying identity.

I know people like this. This is the modern paradigm. Men who have so much money they think things should always go their way…they believe they’re right and entitled. And if you stand in their way…they’ve got tons of cash and lawyers to make you go away.

So to what degree do you cope with a bad neighbor?

I squirmed watching Rhys’s dogs come into Danes’s yard. People love their dogs, they can do no wrong, complain and you’re a pariah.

Are you entitled to peace and quiet?

I kept thinking if I was Danes in this show, I’d move…because I didn’t see Rhys ever bending.

But then Danes interacts with Rhys… She doesn’t want to, she’s squeamish, and he tries to steamroll her and she is flummoxed, but she stays true to herself, and he doesn’t like it.

But you can never say no to a man like this.

He ultimately traps/convinces Danes to go to lunch and doesn’t obey traditional rules of conversation. It’s not exactly that he’s browbeating her, but he’s digging deeper and deeper and… Is this a connection?

I’ve only seen one episode. Don’t tell me if you’ve watched more, and you probably have, this show is hard to turn off, but…

Where exactly is this going? Is this a traditional American production, a ramping up of hostilities, or something more nuanced, with unexpected plot twists.

Now what happens at the end of the first episode disappointed me, it was foreshadowed and predictable.

But Danes living alone, in a large dark house…

This show is creepy.

And despite not wanting Rhys’s money, she needs money.

And…

Check this show out.

Tune in Saturday November 15th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

Were selling culture.

We’re bombarded with stories talking about the Grateful Dead paradigm, how to be successful. Most focus on allowing fans to tape and share live recordings.

But the real story is the Dead created a culture. BY ACCIDENT!

It’s hard to create a new paradigm intentionally, it usually happens by accident. As a result of you following your inner turning fork and declining to do that which doesn’t feel right.

Now it’s possible to have hit records and then a culture, but usually it happens in reverse. It’s the little engine that could. You start from outside and you grow steadily and you may never cross over to the mainstream, but you end up with a big enterprise.

The best example of this today is BTS. They call it the BTS Army. Did they get turned on to the music via radio? Traditional marketing outlets? Was it a PR campaign? No, the internet broke BTS the same way it broke One Direction.

And BTS was ready. You might see it as fanciful KPop, dancing fools, but fans…each member of BTS has a backstory, you can have your favorite, you can become involved and invested in the act. Furthermore, you can find your tribe online. And part of being a member of the BTS Army is putting down those who are not members, who pooh-pooh the act, but the true satisfaction comes from being a member of the group, like-minded people who feel the same way who you can interact with online.

And culture is never instant. And it’s hazy until it ultimately comes into focus. It looks like nothing is there and all of a sudden there’s a monolith. Like KPop itself. We’ve been hearing it’s going to cross over to the U.S. for in excess of a decade. Seemed hard to believe, but then it did, ferociously. You’ve got to work at it and work at it to gain critical mass. Those looking for overnight success today…good luck having traction tomorrow, fans become dedicated over time via more music and more information. You might be able to sell out arenas on your first tour but never come close to that again in the future.

So the Dead did not have a great singer and didn’t play commercial music. They were the antithesis of the Airplane…and it’s funny how no one talks about the Airplane anymore. The Airplane had Grace Slick and “Somebody to Love,” but how many hard core fans did the band truly have?

The vocals were better in Quicksilver Messenger Service, but they did not have the live rep the Dead did.

Not only did Big Brother have Janis Joplin, its biggest success came with covers. But before she passed, Joplin’s career was on a downswing. Then again, it’s hard to be a woman in music, the media focuses on you, you can’t stay off the radar…how you look, what you say is reported, people form an opinion on you oftentimes without even hearing your  music.

It’s a Beautiful Day? Good vocals and more traditional song structure.

While other bands were champing at the bit for success, the Dead were going their own way. If you believe Joe Smith, who signed the band to Warner Brothers, he finally convinced them to make something commercial, i.e. “Workingman’s Dead.” Although he told me this more than once, I’m not sure I believe it. However, one thing is for sure, every Dead album before that was uncommercial. The songs were long and meandering and the rap was you had to hear the band live. So they cut a live album, “Live/Dead,” which got better reviews than anything previously released but was still a commercial stiff.

But if you were paying attention, and those who start a culture always are, there was a buzz about the band’s live performances, primarily in California, the Dead didn’t mean much in the east.

But ultimately Bill Graham threw down the gauntlet. Not only did he book the band at the Fillmore East, he promoted them in the program distributed to every attendee. The back page had a photograph of people standing at the show with the caption “2600 Happy People at the Grateful Dead.” 2600 was the capacity of the Fillmore East, as for the photograph, here it is:

Grateful Dead at Fillmore East, January 2, 1970

So you saw this picture and you felt LEFT OUT!

Furthermore, the ad was for shows beginning at midnight. When traditionally there were two shows a night, at 8 and 11:30. This was something different.

So Bill Graham helped. But you can never do it alone, you always have help, people who believe want to aid you in your journey, because there’s very few people you can believe in.

And then came “Workingman’s Dead.” Suddenly you heard “Uncle John’s Band” on the radio. But, the true breakthrough did not come until the fall of 1970, with “American Beauty,” that’s when all those interested in album rock, not those addicted to the Top 40, took notice.

And when you took notice of an act back in the day, you went to see them live.

And the nascent rock press told you the New Riders were going to open and the show was going to be long and you went and…

It was not a typical show. It was not exciting from beginning to end. People wandered around in a haze.

But the show built and built to a finale, you’d experienced something, and one thing was for sure, you couldn’t experience it anywhere else, especially as music was being consolidated, as songs were written to cross over from AM to FM. Which the Dead wanted to do, but were unsuccessful at.

And then they started their own record label. A horrible idea, but it endeared them to their fans, the band was doing it their own way, they were sticking it to the man, and they were hemorrhaging money doing it.

And this is an important point. There were very few record/publishing royalties, it was all about the money made on the road. And this was a big band with a big entourage and… Sure, they were different, but, once again, they were sustaining, they were not getting rich, nowhere near as wealthy as the FM rockers of the day.

And that’s when the shows and the taping became legendary.

So there were the original Deadheads. Most of them truly dead at this point. The ones in the picture on the inside of “Live/Dead.” They’re pushing eighty, if the drugs and low economic status haven’t gotten them already.

So really, it was about the Boomers.

But what put the Dead over the top was Gen-X, which came online during the days of MTV. The Dead were the antithesis. They were scruffy, they didn’t wear spandex, AND THEY DIDN’T HAVE ANY HITS! It wasn’t even about the recordings…which were not released that regularly. The thunder had been stolen from Gen-X, they lived in the wake of the Boomers, and as greed took over in the eighties, the Dead pointed in another direction, they were something to believe in.

And the road goes on forever.

So the point here is there was no plan. As well as a lot of bad decisions, like the aforesaid independent record company.

And the Dead did not play by commercial rules. And were unsuccessful as a result. Their albums were never juggernauts or big sellers. Oh, they tried, making “Terrapin Station” with Keith Olsen and “Shakedown Street” with Lowell George, but it didn’t work. So they kept on doing what they were doing, going on the road and improvising.

Of course eventually the Dead had an  MTV hit with “Touch of Grey,” but that was already 1987 and it was kind of a joke, a laugh, that this old band finally broke through.

So it was all an accident. Run on instinct and perseverance. And if you’re sitting at home trying to replicate it…

Are you willing to walk into the wilderness? Are you willing to experiment? Are you willing to starve?

Most people are not. But the Dead were rooted in the hippie culture of San Francisco, and by time that evaporated, they were finally on their way. The band was a product of its time.

Making music unlike anybody else. Slogging it out on the road endlessly before it broke through.

Now you can point to modern jam bands and say it’s the same thing, but it’s not. Sure, there are Phishheads, but Phish doesn’t penetrate the world outside its borders. You either adore Trey or have no idea who he is. And the rest of the jam bands…they may noodle, but that does not mean there’s a culture.

So if you want to replicate the Dead paradigm you’ve got to focus on culture, you’ve got to grow culture.

And you’ve got to nurture culture. Pour too much water on the plant and you drown it. People have to feel ownership. That they came to themselves. If something is overhyped, embraced by the mainstream early, culture is eviscerated.

Once again, it’s KPop that is doing the Dead better than any jam band, better than any other act out there. Because KPop focuses on the fan first. Not going on television and saying they love their fans, they owe it all to their fans, but superserving the people who care with endless information, even if no one else other than the hard core is paying attention! Even the Dead, they didn’t reach out, you had to come to them. As for philosophy, Jerry was labeled “Captain Trips” and would drop philosophy in periodic interviews and the band’s fans took it as guidance, because unlike seemingly everybody else, he was not caught up in the starmaker machinery behind the  popular song.

You don’t have to do it the Grateful Dead way. There are tons of successful acts who haven’t. But if you want to emulate the Dead, don’t look at the specific steps the band took, but rather focus on the end result, culture, how can you establish a culture?

You must have an identity. And share it and stay true to it. And put the fans first, not take sponsorships, endorse something just for the money. The benefit must be for the fan. And you can’t complain when others leapfrog you and have success. You have to stick to your guns, playing the long game. Knowing you can’t really have a plan anyway, you’ve just got to keep on truckin’.

Sound like an easy formula? 

NO!

So stop looking to the Dead for guidance unless you’re truly going to do it their way, as delineated above, playing without a net, which very few people are willing to do.