Assassination vacation

(Sometimes my best lines come when there is no one around to appreciate them. Like this one at 6:30 in the morning while watching the news.

Announcer: “The organization ‘Spay and neuter Kansas City’”
EC: “Who I couldn’t agree with more”

Yeah, I’m just a little bitter right about now…)

Anyway, made it through another rainy Monday. I’d just like to shoot the whole day down, ya know? Not much really on my mind right now so I’ll do a book review of something that is definitely an interesting read, and you might be the only person on your block to read it, “Assassination Vacation” by Sarah Vowell.

Sarah Vowell is a) one of the voices of The Incredibles, b) a correspondent for NPR, c) in possession of a bizarre, dry wit and a master’s degree in art history, d) pretty stunning in her book jacket photo, and e) rapidly rising in my perfect mate list as a result of all of this. Plus, she wrote a book about visiting the locations surrounding the Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley assassinations. And I swear, the topic is much more interesting than you would expect.

For me, it did allow me to see the Lincoln sites through a new set of eyes. See, like every other schoolkid in the state of Illinois, I was required by law to make several trips to Springfield to see every place where Lincoln could have theoretically walked. Here’s his house, the old capitol building, the law office, where he got on the train, where he was buried the first time, where he was buried the second time, etc. And Sarah did a good job in talking about those places and make them come alive again.

But what she really does a good job of is talking about people like John Wilkes Booth and the Booth family. Some people know the story that Booth was an actor but they don’t really understand that the Booth family was the premier acting family in the nation. John’s brother Edward was the top Shakespearean actor in the country and has a statue in his honor in New York City. And Sarah does an excellent job of retelling his story and how it links to that of Robert Todd Lincoln, who is the one constant in all three stories (as he was present at all three, making him the guy you did not want to invite to your inauguration).

And the story of the Garfield assassination is unforgettable, which is amazing given that it is probably the most forgotten presidency in history. A guy becomes president who really doesn’t want to be president and gets killed by a lunatic who was asking to be made ambassador to France even though he had no credentials whatsoever. Well, actually, the doctors killed him, Guiteau just shot him. Still, it is a fun look at a forgotten corner of American history.

It’s a good read and Sarah ties it all to the present day as every once in a while you will get an eerie parallel to the world around us. Part history, part travelogue, part editorial. It’s not what you’d normally buy at a Barnes and Noble but it is worth checking out.