Girl Detective

#56 in my movie challenge for the year, Undertow, directed by David Gordon Green, was a mixed bag. I was not surprised to learn that Terence Malick, the reclusive director of the masterpieces Badlands and Days of Heaven, was a producer. The film was very Malick-y, with long, often uncomfortable shots of individuals. It was set in a messed-up, rural locale, and very bad things happened to the characters. This was a very physical film, both for the actors and of the locale, which featured prominently. Ultimately, though, I side more with those who call it pretentious than those who claim it is a masterpiece. I found Greene’s camera work distracted but did not add to the story, which was ultimately too unsettling and non-redemptive for all the suffering it detailed. The performances, though, by Jamie Bell, Dermot Mulroney, and Joshua Lucas, were frighteningly powerful.

#87 in my book challenge for the year, The Skin Chairs by Barbara Comyns was lent to me by my friend Becca. It is told by 10 year old Frances, whose family falls upon hard times and must struggle to adjust. It is a novel of childhood, of pre-WWII England, and both a horror novel in some of the details it relates, as well as a romance for its happy ending. It is well-written, and the child’s voice is compelling, but I found the creepiness and the happy ending were strange bedfellows.

On the inside back cover of Consumer Reports, there is usually at least one example of a fraudulent or misleading magazine solicitation. My husband’s favorite is the one that was a check. When you endorsed it, you authorized someone to charge you for the cost of a subscription, which was, of course, greater than the amount of the check. I’ve had a spate of solicitations, recently, some more insidious than others.

One, from Cook’s Country, I would like to think is just an administrative error. It took me some time to renew my subscription, I did it online, then our next issue had the “YOUR LAST ISSUE” brand on it. I double checked to make sure we had indeed paid them; we had. So I ignored it, and hope that no more solicitations would be forthcoming. In my other interactions with Cook’s, they have been sometimes slow, but scrupulous, especially about renewing our online subscription.

Another, from Everyday Food, is a little more suspicious. Friends recommended the magazine, and I decided to give it a try and signed up for a new subscription online. I got the magazine promptly, but I also got a bill. And another. I checked to confirm that I paid them; I did. If I get one more bill I’ll probably cancel the subscription. The magazine is fine. It’s a nice digest size, and it has recipes that are easy to shop for and prepare. Unfortunately, as my father is fond of saying, everything is a compromise. I’ve found that the recipes compromise convenience for flavor. This is a magazine for good ideas, but I’ve not yet made a recipe good enough to make again. I was already uneasy about giving money to the Martha Stewart empire. While the magazine is good, it’s not good enough to excuse sloppy or deceptive billing.

Finally, last week I received a “bill” from Yoga Journal, a magazine I subscribed to a couple years ago. It’s a lovely magazine, with good paper quality, good yoga information, and many stories about the spiritual side of yoga that is often forgotten in its trendiness as exercise. Apparently, the spirituality does not extend to solicitation practice. The item I received said it was an invoice for a three year subscription for $65. Funny, I don’t recall having contacted them to request a subscription. I discarded the “bill”.

These are all good reminders of why I’ve cut my magazine subsciptions to almost nothing. Not only are you getting a magazine, you’re getting all their solicitations and sometimes solicitations from others. Subscriptions are a tempting deal. They are inexpensive compared to individual issues. They also play to your fear that you might “miss” something if you don’t get every issue. What I’ve found, though, is that my life is a lot simpler and less cluttered when I don’t have magazines and their solicitations piling up. And I have more time because I don’t have to check whether I’ve paid or not. If I don’t have a subscription, then I don’t owe them anything. I can pick up single issues on a whim, and I buy them rarely enough that they never add up to the cost of a subscription. I must, though, admit to having taken some magazines away from recent doctor appointments. This is not a practice I can really condone as a way to avoid subscriptions.

I spent the last hour on the phone with my health clinic so someone could explain what charges I was being billed for, and then with my insurance company, so someone could explain to me why my health clinic is billing me incorrectly and, apparently, unethically.

Why yes, I do have better things to do with my time, thank you for asking.

I have been increasingly unhappy with the quality of care I’ve been getting from the clinic, and now the billing is a problem, too. I don’t relish the thought of switching doctors and clinics mid-pregnancy, but it’s looking more and more like the thing to do.

It occurred to me today that before we pick a new healthcare provider, perhaps we should call the insurance company, and ask how their billing services are. We found our financial consultant this way–we asked a friend who was an underwriter which of the people he worked with gave him the least nonsense. Years later, we’re still thrilled with that choice, so I think there’s something to be said for checking references that way.

In the spirit of the upcoming food fests, here is my favorite easy pumpkin pie recipe. It turns out perfectly for me every time. Blend, pour, bake, cool, ta-da!

1 15-oz. can pumpkin
1 1/2 c. milk, or 1 13-oz. can evaporated milk
1/2 c. biscuit/pancake mix or 1/2 c. flour plus 3/4 tsp. baking powder
1 c. sugar
2 Tbl. butter, melted then cooled
2 large eggs, beaten
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground cloves

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9-inch glass or Pyrex pie plate.

Place all ingredients in blender; blend for 2 minutes. Pour mixture into pie plate and bake for about an hour, or till center is set and tester comes out clean. Cool. Serve with vanilla or ginger ice cream, or vanilla or maple whipped cream.

The cold snuck up on me this year. I live in Minnesota, so you might think cold wouldn’t be surprising. Yet in the seven and a half years I’ve lived here, I haven’t found Minnesota to be the daunting tundra that so many believe it to be. Yeah, it gets a little colder for a little longer in winter, and it’s a little less hot in summer, but the climate is not much different from the other two places I lived the longest, Philadelphia and central Ohio, the latter of which had a MUCH worse winter last year than we did here. In fact, last year Minnesota had a very late first snowfall. So when the weather people began predicting snow this week, I thought, I’ll believe it when I see it. Sure enough, on Tuesday it was wet and cold, but the temp stayed in the mid-thirties F. and never dropped to freezing. Wednesday, though, was something else.

The change in weather wouldn’t have been a problem, except that I was unprepared for the last minute preparations to clear out our yard; today is the last collection day for yard waste by our trash service. My husband G. Grod, as is his habit, left all the leaves till last weekend. Unfortunately, he was only able to clean up the front yard, not the back and sides. Tuesday I went outside in the snizzle with Drake, who was miraculously open to playing in the yard while I hauled ten bundles of hydrangea stalks out to the trash, and raked the back yard. I put off bagging the leaves, though, and they sat out that night. The bad news is they got covered with a thin layer of ice and snow. The good news is that it formed a protective coating so my leaf piles didn’t blow away in the gales of wind.

By yesterday, it was below freezing (hovering just below 20 F during the day, with a wind chill of about 1. Yes, one.) and there was both snow and ice. I began my morning like a responsible home owner, by shovelling and sweeping my steps and walks. I followed this with a scattering of salt for the ice. Drake was not nearly so amenable to staying put while I did this as he’d been the day before (funny, how being fenced in can make watching him SO much easier), though, so imagine a pregnant woman running half a block down icy sidewalks after her toddler, several times, as punctuation to the shoveling/salting. Good times.

During Drake’s nap, I attended to my frozen leaf piles, and filled six bags by hand. I then turned my zeal on the hostas, and cut them back using a small hand clipper, which I don’t recommend. (Last year, G. Grod tried the weed whacker and it didn’t work, so if anyone has a recommended method/tool for cutting down hostas, I’d love to know for next year.) The hostas took up two more bags, and I decided to be done. Everything else will have to wait for a spring clean up.

A few weeks ago, my two year old Drake had trouble sleeping, but didn’t seem sick. I decided to keep an eye on things, then ended up at Urgent Care on Sunday morning. He was diagnosed with infections in both ears and pink eye. He improved rapidly with the antibiotics, but was left with a lingering cough. Again, I decided to keep an eye on it, and congratulated myself when it went away. But when it popped up again after a week (the cough, not the sleep problems), I didn’t even hesitate. I called the pediatrician’s office and made an appointment for the next morning.

The doc listened to Drake’s lungs and peered into his throat and his ears. Drake was a champ, and underwent it all without a yell. The doc then said that the lungs were clear and he probably had another virus, and that his ears looked so clear that he doubted whether Drake’s ears had been infected last month.

I took this all in calmly. At previous points, I would have been railing at myself for wasting my and the doc’s time over just a virus, gnashing my teeth over unnecessary antibiotics, berating myself for having crappy mom instincts, etc. That day, though, I thought the co-pay was well worth it to confirm that Drake didn’t have a bacterial infection. In my experience, the only one who can confirm it is the person with the otoscope. As for second guessing the previous doc’s diagnosis, it didn’t matter to me. If Drake has trouble sleeping nowadays, it’s usually something more serious than a virus. I believe his ears were infected, and that the drugs cleared him up. His behavior and my previous experience backs it up. I don’t rely on the person with the otoscope to retroactively un-diagnose infections. Don’t care. He was sick, he took drugs, he got better. He got sick again, I took him in immediately, and he didn’t need drugs. I grabbed Drake two lollipops on the way out (Dum-Dums, cream soda) for being such a good boy. I kept him home for the next 24 hours, and his symptoms have faded yet again.

Keeping an eye on things is fine, sometimes. But second guessing and self-berating? I’ve got no time for those.

#86 in my book challenge for the year was I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, who is better known as the author of 101 Dalmations. This book was lent me by my friend Becca, who says she read it when young and re-reads it regularly. I was sad when I finished the book that it’s taken me so long to read it for the first time. I envy Becca her long history with it, because it’s a sweet, restorative book. It is narrated by Cassandra Mortmain, the daughter of a one-shot-wonder author father. Their family rents a crumbling castle in not-very-genteel poverty. Their lives and fortunes change when the castle is left to a wealthy American. The book is by turns amusing and sad, and Cassandra’s coming of age is both believable and inevitable. I was surprised by how satisfying I found the ending. As the book led up to it, I couldn’t see how the author was going to pull it off, but she did. This is a wonderful book, short of some cliches along class and country issues, and especially good if you’re feeling in need of something cheering.

In my old, pre-child life, I used to attend yoga class on Sunday mornings at the nearby gym. I skipped breakfast beforehand, since conventional yoga wisdom says not to eat or drink for 2 hours before class. After class, I’d arrive home ravenous, and my husband G. Grod would have prepared me a double short latte, scrambled eggs, and bacon. I loved those brunches.

These days, I am no longer attending yoga classes on Sunday. But yesterday I had a craving for the breakfast in any case. I made my own scramble this time. I started by baking the bacon, which I find is a much more reliable method than pan frying. (G. Grod disagrees with me on this.) I then fried up some frozen hash browns, grated some Swiss cheese, emptied the hash browns from the pan, and added 2 eggs I’d stirred with 2 tablespoons of milk, some salt and pepper. The eggs scrambled in a flash since the pan was so hot, then I turned off the heat and added the hash browns, cheese, and 2 slices (or was it 3?) crumbled bacon back to the pan, folded them together and, voila, I had a perfect scramble, with the ideal blend of breakfast ingredients all in one plate. By scrambling the eggs first and adding the rest later, I didn’t have goopy, undercooked bits of egg, or soggy additions.

My two-year old son Drake makes me aware on a regular basis. Of what, it’s hard to say, exactly, but most definitely aware. There are some incidents that are so beautiful, or so gratifying, that they leave me speechless. Tonight, some milk leaked out of Drake’s cup. He said “Oh, milk,” then went running off to the kitchen. My husband G. Grod followed him, only to find he had grabbed a rag and was running back to wipe up the milk. Drake then turned around and returned the rag to its place in the kitchen. G. and I stared at each other in pleased disbelief at our capable, responsible son. Yet this was also a day in which I had to give him yet another time out for yet another head butt to me–ow. He also threw a screaming fit at the grocery coop, even though he said he wanted to go there, and at each diaper change and car seat strapping in. The range between beautiful and enraging is huge, and I go back and forth along it daily.

My two-year old son Drake is having a hard time with pronouns. For a long time during diaper changes, I’d ask him, “Who do I love?” Then, when he wouldn’t answer, because he didn’t talk until well past 18 months old, I’d say, “You!” Of course, when he did finally answer me, he answered as I did. When I hold out my hand to help him down the stairs, he says, “No, do it yourself.” Often, when he does something for which we’ve praised him in the past, he’ll jump up and down and say, “Yay, you did it!” (I don’t sense he’s hurting in the esteem department.) The past few weeks I’ve been correcting him, which has proved awkward.

I say, “No, Drake, you say, ‘I want to do it myself.’ Or, “No, Drake, you say ‘me’.”

These get confusing even to me, so I’m sure it’s clear as mud to him. He’s a mimic, and I’m sure understanding will come eventually, but for now I think it’s best to just model what I think he means, rather than cluttering it up with more pronouns.

Last year when we bought this house, the inspector told us we should have our chimney tuckpointed within a year. Tuckpointing, I learned, is replacing the mortar between the bricks of a chimney so it doesn’t collapse. Now it’s a year later, winter is coming, and I find there’s good reason I’ve put off this particular piece of maintenance.

First, it’s hard to find someone to do it. We have a two-story house with a high-pitched roof and three peaks, so it won’t be easy getting up there. I’ve asked four people. One said it was too high and he couldn’t do it. Another gave me an estimate of $1200 to $1400. A third waited two weeks to call me at 7:25 in the morning to tell me he was too busy. And the fourth I’m still waiting on an estimate from.

So it’s likely to be expensive, there’s not a lot of choice in who can do it, and finally, it’s not something we’re going to notice or appreciate if we do, only suffer for if we don’t. I shouldn’t complain. I was the one who wanted to buy the old house, as my husband G. Grod often reminds me. But it’s still aggravating.

To all of you living in the United States, a reminder. It’s election day. I know it’s not a presidential year, but go vote! The polls aren’t crowded, the people are nice, and it’s a way to do something good and feel good about it.

Finding out where you’re to vote, and what candidates match your concerns, are easier than ever. Don’t let minor, fixable gaps in knowledge stop you. Spend a couple minutes on Google or at the website of your local newspaper.

Vote!

Rosa Parks died a few weeks ago, and her death was covered in all the major newspapers. Parks became an historical figure when she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus and was arrested.

Beyond that, I bet most Americans could recite many details: she was poor, she was tired, she dared to sit in the white area of the bus. A provocative book I read a few years ago, though, noted that most of these details are either embroideries or untrue. But that doesn’t mean Rosa Parks was a sham, it simply means she was different from the iconic legend that has grown around her.

The book is Should We Burn Babar? by Herbert R. Kohl. In the chapter on Rosa Parks, Kohl notes that she was not poor, but of middle income. She was an active member of the civil rights movement. She, and others like her, were waiting for opportunities of civil disobedience to bring injustice to the attention of the media and the public at large. She was also not sitting in the “white” front section of the bus; she was sitting in the back. The rules at the time said that if a white bus rider asked her to move, she must. She refused, and was arrested. Her arrest was followed swiftly by a boycott of the Montgomery buses by African-Americans that so damaged the local economy that change quickly followed.

In his book, Kohl asks the compelling question of why the myth of Rosa the poor, tired individual was the one that got perpetuated, and why so few people know or remember the boycott, which was critical to changing the laws. He argues that it is as powerful a story, and perhaps more useful as a lesson about injustice, to learn that Parks was a member of a group that was actively seeking non-violent ways to overthrow the unjust laws they had to live with. It is also interesting to note the the actual circumstances around her arrest were more unfair than those that are more popularly known. Wouldn’t it be a better lesson, Kohl argues, to show that working together and planning can bring results?

It’s been several years since I read the book, and I passed it on to a teacher friend of mine. I no longer have it to refer to, so I fear some of these details are a bit fuzzy. What struck me when I heard about Parks’s death was the clarity with which Kohl’s passionate argument came back, and the intriguing duality of Parks the real woman and the legend, both fascinating, both brave, and both integral to change in America. The one I admire more, though, is not the mythical one who had a bad day and reacted, but the smart one who knew that there can be strength in numbers. She saw an opportunity, seized it, and history was not the same. That, to me, is the more compelling person, and the more compelling story.

Harold Bloom has a written a new book in which he says something that has been quoted a great deal already:

I have only three criteria for whether a work should be read and reread and taught to others, and they are: aesthetic splendour, cognitive power, and wisdom.

The quote is short, pithy, and really pretty good, which is probably why it’s being quoted all over the blogosphere. I will paraphrase what I take away from it, which is that a work much be beautiful, provocative, and wise. I think Bloom’s criteria are good ones, especially in conversation with the questions I asked in a recent entry on novels, is there such a thing as a Great Novel, and if so, what are the determining factors?

Bloom’s criteria, though, don’t make the question of what is a great work and what is not any less subjective, because whether a work has aesthetic splendour, cognitive power, and wisdom is a matter of opinion. For example, I noted that I did not think Zadie Smith’s novel, White Teeth, belonged on the Time best-novel list. One of my readers, Duff, disagreed. White Teeth has many strengths, among them a canny portrayal of individual voices from disparate cultures and insightful relationships of family and friends. I think these things give it cognitive power and wisdom. But I found its ultimate plot, which centered around a mouse, to be conventional and overly tidy. Because of this, the book lacked aesthetic splendour for me, and I consider it good, not great.

Bloom’s criteria, then, can be useful in discussing and disagreeing on what works have merit. Bloom earned many enemies when he trashed the Harry Potter books in a Wall Street Journal piece titled “Can 35 million Harry Potter Fans Be Wrong? Yes!.” I’ve enjoyed reading the Potter books, yet I can’t honestly say they have aesthetic splendour, cognitive power, or wisdom. I find them fun to read, and cleverly plotted. I’ve enjoyed the evolution of the characters over six books. But there are greater books out there, ones I eschew when I read a Harry Potter novel, so Bloom has a point. He’s an intelligent person, so this should not be surprising.

Yet when I read Bloom, my hackles rise, and I want to dismiss him as a hide-bound racist who perpetuates on an intellectual level the kind of fascism he decries on a political one. In an interview with Bloom at Eurozine, he says, right after he makes his comment about the three criteria he uses

And those are not the standards now applied in the universities and colleges of the English-speaking world. Nor are they the standards applied in the media. Everyone is now much more concerned with gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, skin pigmentation, and twenty other irrelevancies, whereas I am talking about what I have never talked about before, and that is wisdom.

Throughout the interview, the link to which I found at Arts and Letters Daily, Bloom refers to the female interviewer as “Dear” and “dear child”. He names writers who exemplify wisdom to him. All are male; nearly all are white and dead. I don’t disagree with him on many of the writers he names, especially his author of particular expertise, Shakespeare. In the interview he has some fascinating analysis of Hamlet and the experience of reading Hamlet. I did find it curious that he didn’t talk about the experience of seeing the play but only of reading it. But when he says things so absurd as that he is one of the few teachers left who truly care about teaching, and when he refuses to recognize the worth of work by authors who are not male, I question whether any of what he says can be of value.

In the interview, Bloom quotes another influential but problematic author

Nietzsche said: “Jedes Wort ist ein Vorurteil”, which I would translate as “Every word is a misjudgement”. He also said in Twilight of the Idols — and I quote it again and again teaching about Shakespeare — “Anything that we are able to speak, to say or formulate, is something which is already dead in our hearts” — we can’t even feel it anymore, you know.

The quote reminds me that I don’t have to write clearly about how troubling and problematic I find Bloom and some of his views. It’s better if I don’t have clarity, and continue to wrestle with it. Like Nietzsche, Bloom has written some great things, some troubling things, as well as some things that have been used by others to maintain outdated and exclusionary status quos about whose value has work. Great work has been and will continue to be produced by all people, male and otherwise. Reading work by authors whose lived experience is different from one’s own allows one to expand one’s consciousness, one’s awareness of the subjectivity of great work, and one’s empathy. Bloom calls this irrelevant. Here are a few books that have earned permanent spots on my bookshelf, and that are good examples of why I think Bloom’s white male focus is wrong.

When I went to get my two-year old son Drake up from his nap, he smiled at me, called out “Mom!” excitedly, then said “I love you, mommy,” unprompted by his dad, for the first time. It was such a simple thing with such an emotional wallop that it nearly knocked me over.

I won’t write, and I don’t believe, that moments like this “make it all worth it.” I think life is a complex series of ups and downs that are impossible to nail down onto some karmic balance sheet. It was a moment of great joy and no ambivalence. Moments like that have great worth of themselves, not in comparison or contrast to other things.

Oh, lovely food, we said. Then we gobbled it down. (With a nod to Mrs. Wishy-Washy.)

Last night a friend watched our son Drake so my husband G. Grod and I could go to dinner. We tried again at 112 Eatery, which was fully committed on our anniversary last month. Last night we got there early and were seated immediately. 112 is a small space with only a few reservations to be had. One must either take a reservation at an off time (5 pm and 10 pm were available when I called), book far in advance, or take one’s luck on walk-in seating. Yesterday’s early arrival was key to our success, because by 6:15 every seat was taken.

I have eaten at 112 several times already, but G. Grod had never been. Based on portions, I suggested we share an appetizer, each get an entree, and split a dessert. The appetizer I’ve gotten before and enjoyed was the romaine salad with roquefort dressing garnished with breadcrumbs. Because there’s some disagreement on the safety of blue cheeses during pregnancy, I decided to try something different, so we got the lardon/foie gras salad, which was just as unhealthily oxymoronic as it sounds. Lardons, like thick chunks of bacon, are fried, then tossed with frisee greens and rice wine vinegar and served next to sauteed foie gras. G. Grod defied me to remind him of anything we’d eaten that had ever tasted better. I thought of two things (one, “duck three ways” from a tasting menu at Cosmos restaurant in Minneapolis, and another from a tasting menu at a restaurant in the Black Forest in Germany). Both also involved foie gras, so I think I see a trend in what we favor.

As per my usual, I ordered the small portion of the stringozzi pasta with lamb sugo sauce. This is a red sauce with lamb simmered until it’s soft, then shredded, served over thick, squiggly, house-made noodles. Each time I’ve ordered it, I think, “Oh, the bowl’s too small” until I can barely finish it, and then I’m amazed that I’ve just consumed something that’s so delicious, so savory, so filling, and that only cost $8.

G. Grod got the deceptively plain sounding “French cheeseburger”, which is a half pound of ground beef and onions topped with a slab of soft brie on an English muffin. He also got the french fries, served in a cone, perfectly done, and accompanied by a lovely aioli that caused us to completely ignore the ketchup. He couldn’t finish the burger, though he tried, which left me on my own for dessert.

In the past I’ve ordered the chocolate pot de creme, which has been rich, smooth and with a satisfying punch of chocolate. I wavered between the new version on the menu which is “spicy”, and the pumpkin flan. Our server, who had an enthusiastic knowledge of the menu that he communicated very well, swayed me to the new version of the pot de creme. As he’d promised, the heat of the spices was subtle, but built, and was an especially good complement to the chocolate now that the weather is cooler and autumnal. The texture, though, was no longer smooth like a pudding, but thick and more like a ganache than a custard. I preferred the new flavor but the old texture, which lent a heaviness to the end of an already quite rich meal. I could finish barely half of it.

I’ve gone back to 112 Eatery because it has excellent quality food and menu choices, as well as friendly and knowledgeable staff. While it’s possible to spend a lot there, it’s also possible to eat grandly and spend little. My only quibble is how difficult it can be to get in, yet I don’t blame the owners, who are a husband and wife. They’ve got a small, excellent restaurant, with a small menu that they execute nearly flawlessly. It deserves all the accolades and crowds that it draws. I hope it’s around for a long, long time, so I can keep going when I have the chance.

Finding books that both our two-year-old son Drake and his parents like to read is sometimes a challenge. Also, sometimes a book has a good story, but so-so illustration, or vice versa. So books that we all like and that are beautiful both to look at and to read are something of a trifecta.

I came across Mo Willems’ books during a search at www.amazon.com. I find amazon’s links to “people who bought this also bought this” is useful to learn about books and music that I haven’t heard of. Many people dismiss amazon and its links out of hand–”oh, anybody can write a review, how can you tell anything by that”. But I use the links to browse, and I can often readily identify more and less reliable reviews. I usually only attend to the editorial ones, anyway.

There are four Mo Willems pigeon books–two hardcovers and two board books. In Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, the pigeon begs the reader to drive while the bus driver is away. It’s an interactive story that allows a toddler to yell “No” with abandon, unless s/he’s feeling sympathetic to the pigeon. In The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog, a cute duckling heckles the pigeon before it can consume the serendipitous weiner. The board books are shorter and sturdier than most, and quite charming. The Pigeon Has Feelings, Too! shows an interchange between the pigeon and the bus driver. The Pigeon Loves Things That Go caps toddler-fascinating vehicles with a clever appearance by the duckling.

Willems’ two other recent books, Knuffle Bunny and Leonardo the Terrible Monster, are very good, but did not inspire the mad repetition Drake demanded of the pigeon books. Willems worked at Sesame Street, and was the creative mind behind the strange but charming and short lived cartoon Sheep in the Big City. His simple but engaging illustrations combined with the clever, odd humor make for a great set of books.

“Is he as cute as you are?”

“Nobody is.”

Bogey. Bacall. Sexy banter adapted by Faulkner from a Chandler novel. The Big Sleep was #55 in my movie challenge for the year, and the third Bogey/Bacall film of the year, following Key Largo and To Have and Have Not. The plot makes sense only if you think about it a lot, and doing so takes away some of the fun. This is a joy of a film noir, and the extras on the DVD are worth watching to learn why this film sat on the shelf for almost two years, and why letting it do might have saved Bacall’s career from an early death.

#85 in my book challenge for the year, All Rivers Flow to the Sea has all the trademarks of McGhee’s impressive collection of novels. It is sad and beautifully written. It focuses on new characters in her fictional town of Sterns, NY, but includes characters from former novels as well. This is a young adult novel whose main character, Rose Latham, struggles with grief as her sister languishes in a coma. Rose’s flawed coping behaviors, as well as the persistent people around her, are sharply touching and real. As with all of McGhee’s books, her characters continued to hang out in my mind after I finished the book, and I’m so glad to have them. They are wonderful company. I saw McGhee at the Twin Cities book fest recently, and she described her original three novels, Rainlight, Shadow Baby and Was It Beautiful?, as “saddest, sad, and sadder.” I’m not sure where she would place All Rivers Flow to the Sea on that continuum, but I think it falls into sadder, while her middle-grade novel Snap was sad. Someone asked which book she recommended reading to start. She said Shadow Baby, since it was not only an audience pleaser, but less sad than some of the others. I say, read them in order. Start with Rainlight, which is the saddest, but still my favorite. They’re all of a piece, and they’re all wonderful.