BOOK
Richard Rhodes: Arsenals of Folly
(Alfred A. Knopf)
In November 1983, the world almost came to an end when
a toxic mix of Soviet paranoia and American saber rattling brought us to the brink of nuclear war. In this gripping history of the Cold War arms race, Richard Rhodes, the Half Moon Bay–based author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb, replays the shoddy (not to say downright insane) decision-making that drove this weapons buildup, and describes Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev’s subsequent efforts to talk their nations down from the ledge. While the book gets bogged down at times in policy-speak (“finite deterrence,” anyone?), it mostly rips along like a good thriller, with a valuable post-9/11 perspective to boot. Indeed, many of the miscreants who lied us into the Iraq war—Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle—were also responsible for the American arms buildup under Reagan and his GOP predecessor, Gerald Ford. Some, like Perle, also did their damnedest to torpedo the arms control deals of the 1980s. Now we may be on the verge of a new and less stable nuclear era, as Iran, North Korea, and possibly al Qaeda scramble to get the bomb. It’s scary stuff, and enough to make you pine for the relative certainties of those long-ago Reagan-Gorbachev summits.  B
CHRIS SMITH


CD
IMPERIAL TEEN:
THE HAIR THE TV THE BABY & THE BAND
(Merge)
As rockers age, they often give interviews about wanting to bring their art form to a new level of maturity. Yet their lyrics often revert to tired clichés about wayward women and shiny cars (thinking of the Rolling Stones here). Someone should mail Keith a copy of Imperial Teen’s latest album, because this half-L.A., half–Bay Area quartet’s fourth disc rocks hard while tackling the minutia of getting older. Here’s a band that can sing the praises of canned fruit, Levolor blinds, and baby bonnets while making its audience bounce around like a bag of SuperBalls. On their new CD, whose title refers to the life stuff that got in the way of recording, the Teens continue to ply the formula they’ve worked since 1995, concocting endearing pop songs that chug along with rough-edged guitar hooks, multipart male and female harmonies, and the odd keyboard filigree. On ballads like “Room with a View” and “Fallen Idol,” the group showcases a newfound loungey touch as they give failure and disappointment a gorgeous lilt. Perhaps with age has come the understanding that success can be a thorny beast. Or, as Will Schwartz and Roddy Bottum sing (on “Everything”), “I love everything / Everything that’s beautiful / Everything that’s horrible.”  A-
DAN STRACHOTA

MOVIE
how to cook your life
(Opens in S.F. Oct. 26)
Ed Brown, the Fairfax-based Zen priest who wrote The Tassajara Bread Book, has a schoolboy giggle and a hair-trigger temper, both of which are on display in this tasty documentary by German filmmaker Doris Dörrie, best known in this country for films such as Men (1985) and Enlightenment Guaranteed (2000). Shot during cooking classes in the kitchens of various monastic facilities, including the San Francisco Zen center and the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in Carmel Valley, the film is ostensibly about chopping and kneading and the intricacies of fine cooking—but since in Zen no thing is just what it is, there are, perforce, life lessons to be learned. While holding forth engagingly on Buddhist principles, Brown showcases his own imperfections. “I’m a low-level tyrant,” he ruefully admits, but he’s also a big softie. By film’s end, tears stream down his face as he describes the sturdy, plucky teapots he’s encountered over the years, “so willing to provide and serve the people who were using them.” For anyone who cares about the soul of cooking, or the cooking of the soul, this small, sincere, lighthearted film is a must-see.  A
BURR SNIDER

DVD
safe harbour
(New Line Cinema)
With 102 titles and half a billion books sold, romance novelist Danielle Steel is the McDonald’s of American fiction. You may entertain reservations about her craft, complexity, or nutritional value, but sometimes nothing else will satisfy. And with Steel, you know exactly what you’re going to get: a man with dark eyes, a woman with a dark past, secrets, tears, redemption, True Love. Now New Line Cinema is making and distributing straight-to-video adaptations of the San Francisco author’s work. The first in the series, Safe Harbour offers no surprises, which is probably a good thing. Melissa Gilbert plays a grieving French woman who has lost her husband and son in a plane crash. Her preteen daughter, a sweet young girl who never says, “Maaahm!” in a shrill voice or demands the right to get a tattoo, befriends a lonely, handsome painter (Brad Johnson, a former Marlboro Man—literally—as well
as a veteran of the Rapture-touting Left Behind movie series) on the beach near their home. The daughter introduces him to her mother, and…you’ll never guess what happens next! As guilty pleasures go, I think I still prefer the novels, simply because New Line’s B-lilst talent can't compete with the A-listers in my imag-inary cast.
B (and a side of fries)
SHEERLY AVNI

BOOK
Fake Steve Jobs: Option$: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs
(Da Capo Press)
Apple CEO Steve Jobs is a genius, no doubt, but there’s plenty that’s loathsome about him, too. The smug messianism, the reportedly vicious treatment of his employees, those mock turtlenecks—he’s a perfect target for satire. Forbes editor Daniel Lyons’ anonymously penned blog, “The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs,” has been skewering Jobs and Silicon Valley culture in general for the past two years. Now Lyons, who was unmasked by the New York Times a few months ago, has built his blog into a breezy and often hilarious book plotted around the options-backdating scandal that has plagued the real-life man. “Fake Steve” is a creature of pure id: selfish, misanthropic, and fond of declaring, “Dude, I invented the friggin’ iPod. Have you heard of it?” Other Valley power players and their celebrity buddies fare no better: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has a world-class bong collection and a fetish for Asian interns, while a dim-witted, hard-drinking Bono schemes after the Nobel Peace Prize. As his legal troubles mount and prison looms, Fake Steve peers
into the abyss, coming away with an epiphany of sorts. “Sure, maybe I’m a sociopath,” he reasons, but “the world needs sociopaths. Who else ever gets anything done?”  A
CHRIS SMITH