Today we start with pure fun. This is immediately one of my favorite books:
Alright, Alright, Alright: An Oral History of Dazed and Confused (Amazon)
Friend and Moontower reader Matthew sent me this book out of the blue a few years ago. I was in a reading rut and figured let me just crack open something fun instead of auto-piloting the next book in the queue.
Melissa Maerz (who I discovered is married to Chuck Klosterman) crushes this story. It’s organized by topic, with some prose, but mostly Maerz framing parts of the movie production that are then brought to life via quotes from over 100 actor and staff.
This book is a capsule of the 90s. A capsule of Austin, TX. A deep profile of director Richard Linklater. A story of kids trying to make their way, some haphazardly, some with stars in their eyes. It’s a story of Hollywood in transition. It’s bursting with celebrity trivia. Non-stop “what?!” moments. And it’s loaded with interesting knowledge like how the music rights work.
This website’s inspiration starts with my now ancient love of the movie. I first saw D&C when I ditched my summer job at Keansburg Amusement Park midday to bum around with some slacker kid. He had a copy of it on VHS (this is summer ‘96). I was already a big fan of Clerks, not just because it’s awesome, but because I grew up where all those Kevin Smith films were shot. I drove by the Red Bank church and HS (“RBC”) in Dogma every day on the way to my high school. The diner where Affleck takes the painting in Chasing Amy was on our circuit. If you’re from Jersey in the 90s, you know diners. The Monmouth mall in Mallrats was the mall I grew up going to. Waldenbooks. Babbages. If you had your colonoscopy, you know what I’m talking about. Smith drew so much from Linklater so discovering all the connections in this book rocks.
I posted threads of screenshots if interested: