Girl Detective

I saw the new animated feature from Pixar, Up, earlier this week with my nearly 6yo son Drake. I cried three times, he was scared about as many times, but overall we enjoyed it. One of my favorite fleeting moments of parenting is sitting in the dark with Drake, watching a movie and hearing him laugh with delight. I love sharing that moment with him.

In addition to the balloons, old man and pudgy boy featured in the ads, Up has a delightful dog and bird, both of whom often steal their scenes. It’s rated PG for good reason, though. There are some scary chases, both by dogs and up high, and a cruel villain with a gun. In general, I think this is better for school-aged kids (I was glad not to have brought 3yo Guppy) and not for kids afraid of mean dogs, guns and heights. Also, I opted for the 2D, not the 3D, which I think would be better for kids older than Drake.

While it’s no Wall E, which I thought one of the best films of last year, and perhaps Pixar’s best yet, Up is still very good and worth seeing. It’s beautiful to look at, and has stuff to appeal both to kids and to adults, without resorting to the cheap pop-culture references of Pixar’s low-rent imitators.

The Escapists by Brian K. Vaughan is one of several comics inspired by Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Like that prose novel, this graphic novel plays with the boundary of reality and fiction. In it, a young man from Cleveland, Max Roth, buys the rights to a defunct comic-book character, the Escapist. He finds two friends to help create a new version of the comic book, then tries to publicize it in the manner of the character’s creators, Sam Clay and Joe Kavalier. It tells the story in real time, with flashback and pages of the fictional comic the team creates, all with different artists to distinguish the changes in story. Like the novel it’s inspired by, The Escapists is clever with sympathetic characters, a layered narrative, and a story both tragic and hopeful. A fitting, post-modern complement to Chabon’s excellent novel.

I first read Michael Chabon’s Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay in the sleep-deprived, surreal days following the birth of my son Drake, now almost 6yo. He was hungry around the clock, so I nursed him lying down so I could read at the same time. I even got a book light so I could read during the night feedings. I remembered the book itself only vaguely, yet the physical act of reading it–nursing, switching sides, wrestling with the book light and an unwieldy hardcover–is still very clear.

I was surprised, then, on this re-reading, to find this book not only extremely well-written and crafted, but also so enjoyable. How could I not remember how flat-out GOOD this book was? Well, I remember it about as well as I remember Drake’s earliest infancy. THAT I don’t need or want to go through again, but this book was a delight to rediscover.

The book details the friendship and collaboration between Josef Kavalier, a WWII Jewish refugee from Prague, and Sam Clay (ne Klayman). The cousins are in their late teens, and break into the burgeoning business of comics by creating a character called The Escapist.

The long run of Kavalier & Clay–and the true history of the Escapist’s birth–began in 1939, toward the end of October, on the night that Sammy’s mother burst into his bedroom, applied the ring and iron knuckles of her left hand to the side of his cranium, and told him to move over and make room in his bed for his cousin from Prague.

The book is a wild mixture of history, fabrication, Jewish lore, metaphor, comic books, romance, and adventure, all told through a fascinating panoply of complex, engaging characters. I’m a comic book geek, so the lengthy sections on comics history were interesting to me. The book likely would be a tougher read for someone with no interest or experience with comics. Even so, there’s so much going on in this book, I’d be very surprised if a reader didn’t find something to like, even love, in this sprawling epic.

Yesterday was my first day with a CSA share, or half of one, to be precise. I was lucky enough to inherit a few weeks of veggies last summer; the freshness and variety convinced me to invest this year. Today’s box included the following. After some research, I’ve added storage tips and probable recipes.

Spinach: Surprise! Don’t wash right away. Keep in loose bag till ready to use, then stem and clean. I’ll make Tofu with Spinach Sauce.

Kohlrabi: remove greens and store unwashed in loose bag till ready to use. Store bulb in vegetable drawer (cold and moist). Peel and cut up bulb raw to use in salads. I’ll use greens with chard and bok choy in Pan-Cooked Greens with Tofu and Garlic*.

Arugula: wash, dry, and store in plastic bag with paper towel to absorb extra moisture. I’ll make Tuscan-Style Steak with Arugula and Parmesan.

Radishes with greens: Remove greens, wash and store like arugula. I’ll use radishes in Tabbouleh*.

Broccoli: cut off bottom of stem. Store upright in shallow water. I’ll make Stir Fried Beans with Broccoli*.

Bok Choy: Don’t wash till ready to use. Keep in loose bag till ready to use, then wash and dry stalks. For Pan-Cooked Greens with Tofu and Garlic*.

Swiss Chard: Like spinach. When ready to use, trim stems, then remove leaves from them with a sharp knife under running water, letting the leaves fall into a bowl; rinse off additional dirt from leaves and dry. Roughly chop stems, then add to recipe a minute or two before adding leaves. For Pan-Cooked Greens with Tofu and Garlic*, and More Vegetable Than Egg Frittata*.

*From Food Matters by Mark Bittman.

The entire title is a bit unwieldy: The Woman’s Book of Yoga and Health: A Lifelong Guide to Wellness by Linda Sparrowe with yoga sequences by Patricia Walden. I call it The Purple Book for short, and I refer to it so frequently I have never lent it out. I’ve even considered dissecting it so I could take certain sections with me on vacations or breaks instead of toting the entire nearly 3-pound book. Thus far, though, it’s intact, and it’s gone with me on short weekends and long family trips. If you are a woman with even a passing interest in yoga–even if you’ve never tried it before–I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

It begins with three series: Essential, Energizing, and Restorative. Sparrowe recommends practicing at least three times a week, and fitting the practice to your needs alternating essential with energizing or restorative if you’re injured or run down. The subsequent chapters offer further specific information, health advice and yoga sequences for a comprehensive array of issues: menstruation, menopause, pregnancy, back injuries, headaches, depression, and more. Yoga sequences are illustrated by clear photos and detailed descriptions, along with benefits and cautions.

This book is a terrific reference, and I’ve learned a great deal about yoga from using it, even though I’ve never read it cover to cover. I can always find at least one yoga pose to suit my circumstances, and usually have to restrain myself from doing more. I can almost always fit in three yoga poses a day, even at my busiest and most harried. What I like best about it, though, is its practical approach. At core, it recommends eating, resting and exercising in moderation.

No matter how often you do yoga, you can’t hope to prevent or heal your health problems without making other lifestyle changes. If you practice yoga, but continue to eat poorly, get very little sleep, or stay in abusive or stressful relationships (in either your personal or work life), chances are you’ll continue to get sick.

While it’s the kind of advice that seems so obvious it doesn’t need to be stated (and many medical doctors don’t), Sparrowe does it in a reminding manner, not a nagging one. I’ve had this book since it was published, nearly seven years ago. Not many books have that kind of staying power, especially ones that can be reductively classed as self-help. This one, I’ve found, is a keeper.

I wrote last week about my 5yo son Drake, and our struggles with some of his behaviors that are typical of kids on the autism spectrum. At that time, I tallied three steps forward and two steps back. I might have known I was jinxing myself.

The day after, Drake found one of his digital watches and spent most of an hour singing tuneless nonsense words while he timed himself. I was surprised at this not because it’s a new behavior, but because it’s been gone for months; he used to do it frequently at home and at preschool. Additionally, he’s having more extreme outbursts of temper. If I tell him no, he will sometimes throw himself to the ground, crying and screaming at full voice, at home and in public. These are both regressions, and disheartening after the cautious optimism about progress.

When we saw one of his teachers the other day, he smiled, but would not speak to her. Later, though, he said, unprompted to a friend, “Hey, I want to introduce you to one of my friends. I don’t know if you know him.” Then today I got a progress report from school. He overcame some problems he was having in music class. But he never initiated play with another kid. It feels like every step forward is negated by one step back.

It’s silly to keep score, even if events were quantifiable. And it’s hardly useful for me to pin hope and despair on fluctuations in his behavior–he’s growing and changing all the time. So I’ll celebrate any progress, and remember it usually comes with a regression in something else, so I shouldn’t be alarmed. That approach typifies my sense of parenting, one I’m not always able to enact, though I do keep trying: Enjoy things when they’re good, and don’t flip out when they’re bad. Or, in the newly fashionable phrase, “Keep calm and carry on.”

My elder son, now-5yo Drake, was not a sleepy baby. Newborns are supposed to sleep around the clock; he didn’t. Drake was alert all the time. He slept rarely, and for short intervals. He didn’t sleep through the night until he got his own room at just over a year old. It was, as many can imagine or empathize, a source of stress.

I followed all the advice for Drake: bedtime ritual, warm bath, dark bedroom. Yet for the first six to eight months, I couldn’t put him in bed unless he was asleep. Even then, as I gingerly laid him in his co-sleeper, then his crib, I’d slowly back away, muscles tensed in a combination of fear and hope. About half the time, he’d start to cry and I’d have to go through the whole comforting/singing spiel again. So whenever I saw a movie or television scene of a parent going into a child’s room, stroking their head, and talking to them, I started to rant. That was ridiculous, unrealistic, romanticizing, etc. etc. Kids didn’t sleep that soundly. There was a reason someone advised, “Never wake a sleeping baby.”

When I heard Colin Powell’s comment upon hearing that President Bush was “sleeping like a baby” on the eve of war with Iraq. I laughed. Finally, someone had got it right.

I’m sleeping like a baby, too. Every two hours, I wake up, screaming.

But then, as so often happens, things changed. Around age two, Drake started napping for hours at a time, and sleeping soundly at night. With now-3yo Guppy it happened even sooner. I even sometimes find myself in the reverse dilemma from Drake’s infancy: I have to wake them, and it’s not easy.

I’ve made my peace, then, with the sappy parental bedtime scenes. I’ve had a few of my own. I _can_ go into their room, remove the books from the beds, kiss their heads, and pull up the sheets. When they’re lying there, abandoned in sleep with rosy cheeks, it’s easy to forgive a lot of the tumult of the day that went before.

Until the next day, that is, when the screaming and the hollering and the “MOM!”ing and the neediness starts all over again. But I’ve got most of a good night’s sleep to help me weather it.

James Cameron, fresh from Terminator, directed Aliens, the sequel to Ridley Scott’s Alien. Scott’s movie was dark, brooding, psychological horror. Cameron wisely takes the sequel in a different direction, adding many more monsters (though only six suits were used, he claims in an interview on the special edition), many more characters, and a lot more action. Ripley’s character still gets room to develop, though the others around her tend to be caricatures, albeit entertaining ones, like Bill Paxton’s Hudson, who talks tough till he meets the aliens:

We’re all gonna die man!

or Michael Biehn’s good guy, who has the good sense to value Ripley right away:

Ripley: [pointing to part of gun Hicks is showing her] What’s this?
Hicks: That’s the grenade launcher. I don’t think you want to mess with that.
Ripley: You started this. Show me everything. I can handle myself.
Hicks: [chuckles] Yeah, I noticed.

With the aliens, as with the humans, the mother figure is in charge. The men around her support and protect her, but she’s the one not to mess with, especially if her offspring, literal or metaphorical, are threatened.

Seventeen minutes of deleted scenes were added back in to the theatrical release to make the Special Edition DVD we watched. They were fine scenes, adding detail and character, but not necessary. Given the amount of action and horror, I’d have preferred a shorter edition. Action, or movement, was key to Cameron’s take on the characters. He put less detail into the alien suits, but made them more mobile. He hired gymnasts and athletes and instructed them to move quickly, and inhumanly. This, along with the editing, gives the impression of a legion of aliens, not just a paltry half dozen.

The character of Ripley recently topped Sci Fi Online’s list of “Women Who Shook Sci Fi.” (Entertainment Weekly has a geekish, though valid, quibble with the list.) Also, there’s an Alien prequel in the works. Even with all the kerfuffle, I think I’m going to skip installments 3 and 4. I saw them when they came out, and prefer keep the memories of the very good 1 and 2 unsullied.

Did you know the movie Alien was thirty years old? Ridley Scott’s space-monster classic has aged surprisingly well. It’s a pleasure to revisit it, and be reminded of how many later films, not only its sequels, have stood on its substantive shoulders.

In space, no one can hear your scream.

A mining ship is on its way back to Earth. The crew is awakened out of stasis after the ship, Mother, intercepts what seems to be a distress call. Tension builds among the characters as they gradually figure out what’s going on. There is an iconic dinner scene, a scary monster designed by H.R. Giger, and some kickass performances, particularly that of a then-little-known Sigourney Weaver. My husband G. Grod and I wanted to revisit this and its sequel, Aliens, after watching Cameron’s Terminator and T2. I’m now v. much looking forward to Aliens, on deck for tonight if I can stay awake for the special edition’s whopping 154 minutes.

I do so love a good arbitrary deadline. Some of the folks from The Morning News propose reading poor, dead David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest this summer. Four writers who’ve never read it are guides, with other guest experts joining them along the way. They start 6/21 at summer solstice, and ends 9/22 at the autumn equinox. It works out to about 75 pages a week. Totally do-able, no?

Speaking of chunky classics, David Copperfield is the selection for the next book club (real and virtual) at Semicolon. Sherry does the online book world a great service every week by hosting a Saturday Review of Books, where readers can share links to what they’ve written, and find other blogs by other readers.

My husband and I bought the Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 2 dvd set when it came out, watched a few episodes, then put it away. We had no idea where we’d ended, so we went back to the beginning, starting with Season 1, episode 1. Buffy is a fun show with a dark sense of humor and a way with theme and metaphor. Season 1 was Buffy finding her bearings in Sunnydale and battling the Master, an ancient vampire bent on, what else, releasing hell on earth.

Season 2, though, digs deeper and even darker. The series moves away from some of the sillier “monster of the week” episodes, and spends more of its time on the bad guys: Spike, Drusilla, and a friend turned foe. It still finds time for the funny, though.

Oz: Yeah. Hey, did everybody see that guy just turn to dust?
Willow: Uh, well, uh… sort of.
Xander: Yep. Vampires are real. A lot of them live in Sunnydale. Willow will fill you in.
Willow: I know it’s hard to accept at first.
Oz: Actually, it explains a *lot*.

Nasty stuff happens to characters we’ve come to love, and we get to see how it affects them over time. I found the two-parter in the middle, “Surprise” and “Innocence”, along with the season finale, wrenching stuff. The Amazon reviewer sums it up well, I think: “This is some of the best TV ever made, period.”

While the media is abuzz over a silly rumor about Buffy that will likely never come to pass, do yourself a favor: ignore the gossip and revisit the original series. It’s a perfect show for the summer season of reruns.

I noticed the change a few weeks ago in the diaper aisle. The former green box of Minneapolis-based Target-brand diapers was gone, replaced by a goldenrod-colored box with a chunky arrow, an “Up and Up” label, and a picture of a reasonably cute baby in a diaper. What it does not have? The familiar Target bullseye. The design of the interior product has changed, too. Instead of primary-colored polka dots with cute animal drawings, the diapers now simply have pastel blue and green dots.

The diapers are still the least expensive in the aisle. Diaper math tends to make my eyes bleed, since they purposely put such a weird number in each box, and each brand uses different numbers. I’ve used a calculator before (diapers cost about .$25 each), but once I figured out that Target-brand diapers were fine, and always inexpensive, I decided to stop messing about. Yeah, other diapers fit better and leak less. But as I head toward the dubious milestone of five years of diaper changing, I care less about my child’s comfort and instead hope any discomfort might just speed the learning process along.

Back to the new look for Target-brand. It was announced at Reuter’s last month, and has received some press already. In the past, most Target brand items have aped the color scheme of whatever brand they compete with, but with the Target bullseye. Now, though, the intent is to set the product apart on the shelf, though it still lists the brand name item to compare prices with. The Up and Up products look less cheap than they did with the old packaging, but still are inexpensive compared to other items. And that, in a nutshell, is the niche Target has mastered: better design at lower prices. For photos of Up and Up packaging next to the former Target brand, visit Under Consideration and My Private Brand, which also has photos of Target’s new reDesign brand for home items.

I’m intrigued to see what happens. It’s interesting they removed the trademarked bullseye. Yes, the chunky arrow is eye-catching, and it’s a clever metaphor, too: arrow->Target. But Target is one of the biggest and most well recognized brands out there. Messing with the store brand, especially in an economic trough, is a big risk.

In other Target news, they’re leading the way in bag recycling by NOT recycling. Instead they’re upcycling–taking existing plastic bags, fusing them in a brief heating process that created a new, stronger, bonded, reusable bag called a Retote. The process uses less energy than what’s needed to recycle bags.

My 5yo son Drake has always been a challenging child. “Oppositional” is what his pediatrician called him at the three-year check up. Every year I’d ask the doc about autism. Every year he’d tell me not to worry. Then at the last one, I pressed him. “OK,” he admitted. “Drake’s a little different.” The doc advised me to increase his playdates to improve his social skills, decrease his screen time, and increase his physical activity.

When Drake returned for his third year of preschool (he has a late summer birthday; I delayed kindergarten because of his social issues), he had behavioral problems. His teacher and I sought help from the public school system. After a thorough observation, the team confirmed what I’d suspected–Drake was “on the spectrum.” High-functioning Asperger’s syndrome is a good approximation, though the education team was quick to say it wasn’t a medical diagnosis, only an education term to get him help in areas of difficulty.

I haven’t written about this because it feels full of land mines. Am I pathologizing my kid? If I write about him, am I pimping out his problems? Many who know us make it clear–politely or not–that they think Drake’s normal and we’ve been hoodwinked by modern fear mongers into pigeonholing our child. I’m also wary of blithely announcing “my kid’s autistic” because I don’t want to trespass on the pain of those families whose spectrum experiences are much more difficult than ours. But not writing about it has gotten to the point where I can’t celebrate really cool things, and that, I feel, is a loss to Drake.

Since late fall, he’s had OT and attended a social skills class. His communication has improved, and his formerly frequent tantrums are fewer and less intense. Every week a short bus picks him up and drops him off; he’s unaware of the stigma about the size of the bus. Last week, he got off the bus, then ran back to a window. Two kids from his class were inside, waving goodbye and calling to him, all smiles. He responded in kind. It was a sweet, genuine moment, all the more so because I know these kids struggle with social interaction and friendship.

The social struggles begin at home. Like most kids, Drake fights with his younger brother, 3yo Guppy. For years, now, a typical pattern is Guppy will cry, then Drake will scream because he’s can’t stand the noise. This cycle might sound funny, unless you’ve endured it as many times as I have. Eventually, at my urging, Drake would leave the room. At 3yo, though, Guppy still cries and screams a lot. A few times lately, Drake has followed my advice and tried to make Guppy feel better. He does this by quoting lines by the Swedish Chef from Boom Comics’ Muppet Show comic. That makes Guppy laugh, and the tantrum gets defused. It’s a bizarre, but hilarious, solution to the problem.

Another change got noticed by a friend. After a recent playdate, the mom sent me an email with the subject line, “Drake ate food!” She is well aware of the struggles I’ve had over my picky and painfully skinny little boy’s eating habits. That day, though, he ate everything she offered for lunch: sandwich, veggies, fruit and more. Amazingly, the trend holds with us, too. He’s sampled foods he formerly shunned, like tacos, spaghetti, salad and tostadas. He devours edamame from the shell. He recently pronounced something spicy but awesome. With food, as with the school bus waving and the Swedish Chef cheering, there’s positive change, and I’m cautiously hopeful of more.

It’s not all forward momentum, though. I heard the boys screaming at each other last week. When I went to investigate, I found Drake on his top bunk yelling, and Guppy wailing on the floor.

“What happened?” I asked.

“GUPPY WANTED THE FIREMAN. I COULDN’T FIND IT. I THREW BEAR.”

Translation: Guppy asked Drake for the fireman toy. Drake couldn’t find it. Guppy started to cry, which irritated Drake, who threw a teddy bear at him in anger, which made Guppy cry more.

I quickly located the fireman, admonished Drake for making things worse, and they both quieted down.

On a recent night I was making dinner, while the boys played on the back porch. I glanced out and noticed Drake throwing something into the back yard. I opened the porch door, and saw a pile of hair. Drake had decided he and Guppy needed haircuts, so he’d used his scissors. The results, while not terrible, were definitely choppy, and will need to be fixed by a professional.

That still leaves me one hopeful step ahead, though. I’m going to relish this as long as I’m able. And hey, maybe the next event will be a hopeful one too. Or at least amusing, if it’s not.

The article “Birds in Hand” from the March issue of Gourmet intrigued me. Roast two chickens at once, it said, to produce a chicken dinner for four, then use the leftovers for three more meals. Something about this kind of one-stop all-week shopping appeals to the thrifty housewife in me, so I decided to give it a go.

What I didn’t know, though, was that I’d be seeing those chickens for quite some time. My sons, 5yo Drake and 3yo Guppy, are picky, though improving, eaters. So the meals for four sometimes stretched out to lunches and leftovers, as the boys sometimes opted for PBJs, cereal, and other kid-friendly dinner substitutes.

I began with Roast Chicken with Pan Gravy and served Panfried Smashed Potatoes on the side.

I used the leftover roast chicken to make Cheesy Chicken and Mushroom Lasagne. The kids wouldn’t touch it, but G and I devoured it.

Next up were Chicken Gyros with Cucumber Salsa and Tsatsiki. Again the kids were suspicious of such a multi-layered meal, but I thought it was delicious.

With still more roast chicken to use, I made the Chicken Tostadas again. Drake pronounced them, “Spicy, but awesome!” And if you know what kind of eating struggles we’ve had with him, you’ll know I just about broke down and cried.

But I still had leftover chicken and tomato sauce. So I put that over tortilla chips, covered it with cheese, topped it with the leftover iceberg lettuce and radishes for Chicken Nachos, recipe adapted from Cooks Illustrated.

Still not done, I took a last serving of the chicken nachos, heated them up in the cast iron skillet, added in two eggs, and had a Mexican chicken scramble.

After all this, I still had Leftover Roast Chicken Stock to make. I threw in two carcasses and the odds and ends in my veggie bin, then made a Leek and Pea Risotto. The recipe called for calamari. I tried trout instead. Bad call. Better to have skipped the protein entirely.

Then I was done, right? Alas, no. I still had a cup of Pan Gravy from the first recipe. So I heated up a bag of frozen fries, topped them with Wisconsin cheese curds, melted them in the oven, then covered them in gravy to make Poutine, a staple of Canadian diners.

That, my friends, was finally the end of the two roast chickens. Thirteen days. Eight different recipes, nine if you count making the stock. Everything but the trout was good, some things were great. But it was an enormous undertaking, and continually reusing all the food was tiring. It’s not an experience I’ll be repeating anytime soon.

Next up, I think, lots of small, simple, meals that I’ll try to make both veggie based and kid to friendly. Yeah, those aren’t mutually incompatible, are they? I can but try.

A recent reading of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s newest installment in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series, 1910, sent me scurrying back to the beginning, volume 1. It’s a fabulous re-read, because it’s so dense with lit-geek references that I’m sure I still missed many on this, my third or fourth time through it.

A strong willed woman with a mysterious past, an ex-adventurer with an opium habit, a psychopathic invisible man–all report to a man named Bond, who works for a mysterious “M”.

Mr. Quartermain? My name is Wilhelmina Murray. Your country has need of you again, sir.

Go away.

Sir, I had heard better of you. Is there nothing left of what you were? … I see. Then may the good lord help the empire, sir, if there are no men finer than yourself… to guard her?

Mayhem soon follows. There are more favorite Victorian characters here than you can shake a stick at. Not only is it fun to read, but it also makes me want to have another go at the source material. It was this series that first spurred me to tackle Gulliver’s Travels, Wells’ Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and more. I enjoyed the series, and it made me eager to read more, and to learn more. Not many books can do that, eh?

I could have guessed what would happen. When I picked up League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1910, I couldn’t get my bearings. The series, formerly at DC, was now published by Top Shelf Productions. When I started to read, I wondered, who was this character? What happened to that one? Was I confused because I’d forgotten things from an earlier storyline? Were things murky on purpose? My best guess: it’s some of both.

When I read 1910 in its entirety, including the prose end-story, more of it made sense. Like its predecessors, 1910 is a dark, entertaining romp with characters from famous Victorian literature. Many of the references I got (Virginia Woolf’s ambisexual Orlando); I’m sure more sailed over my head (Mack the Knife and Pirate Jenny were two I looked up later).

Mina Murray, Allan Quatermain, Jr., and colleagues are in pursuit of an occult group up to no good. Meanwhile, a young Indian woman defies her father and strikes out on her own. Stories collide in a spectacular way, accompanied by a duet commentary from two other characters. It’s interesting, with many plots left dangling, which certainly makes me eager for the next installment of what is to be a trilogy.

Till then, though, I’ll reread the earlier series, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, vol. 1.

From Top 10: Season Two issue 4, by Zander Cannon and Gene Ha. Top 10 is a comic book set in a world in which everyone has superpowers. The book has often been described as a mash up of NYPD Blue and superheroes.

In a scene from issue four, therapist Dr. M. Gautama to police officer Irma Wornow, aka Irma Geddon:

1. Life sucks
2. It sucks because you want everything to LAST, and it never DOES.
3. And the one thing that would make you a lot HAPPIER about this world…is if you just stopped caring.

Tough talk from a therapist, but amusing because the police therapist is a pipe-smoking buddha. He’s trying to teach Irma the first three of the Four Noble Truths, which were phrased differently when I learned them at school:

1. All of life is dukkha (which reductively translates as suffering).
2. Dukkha is caused by desire.
3. To cut the cord of dukkha, cut the cord of desire.

This scene is a perfect example of the state of the art of comics today: smart, funny, and multi-layered. Top Ten is one of my favorite comics; check it out if you haven’t yet.

Were you wondering what the fourth noble truth is?

4. Follow the Noble Eightfold Path

Me: [snicker]

My husband, G. Grod: What’s so funny?

Me: A good line that mixes Austen and the Fantastic Four.

[Repeat. Repeat.]

Later:

5yo Drake: Mom, please take that book back to Big Brain!

Me: Why?

Drake: It’s UGLY!

If he thought the cover was ugly, I wasn’t going to show him the inside. In Fantastic Four: True Story, the FF jump into the world of fiction to save the world at large. The villain is so similar in looks and domain that he’d better be an homage to Neil Gaiman’s Morpheus, or lawyers are likely to be involved. This is a fun, funny story that borrows its theme from Jasper FForde’s Thursday Next series and delves into Sense and Sensibility, Last of the Mohicans, Ivanhoe, and more. Not only are there clever mash-ups of literature and comic book conventions, there are several meta moments when the FF are confronted as characters of fiction as well.

It is not good enough, though, to compensate for the terrible art. It’s clumsy, rushed-looking, and for the second half I couldn’t tell the difference between Sue Richards and the elder Dashwood sisters. This story is a lark for fans of FForde, Austen and other authors referenced in the book. But the art and story never connect in a memorable way. Disposable fun.

I was talking to a movie-phile friend last week. “We just watched Terminator 2 again,” I said. “It was _awesome_” He laughed.

“What?” I asked. “Are you disagreeing that it’s awesome?”

“No,” he said, “It’s just that I probably haven’t heard anyone that excited about it since 1991.”

He was right. I’d completely forgotten how thrilling the story, how groundbreaking the special effects, and how bad ass Sarah Connor was. Nominated for six Oscars, it won four. Yeah, the story drags a bit toward the end. But that’s easy to forgive, in the face of the rest of it.

John Connor: Does it hurt when you get shot?

The Terminator: I sense injuries. The data could be called “pain.”

If you’ve forgotten how good those original Terminator movies were, your challenge is to rent Terminator and T2 and watch them. Then I bet you’ll be joining me next weekend to see if Terminator: Salvation can bring back this franchise.

Picking picture books for kids can be hit or miss–the art’s good, but the story’s not, or vice versa. The text is too simple, or too long for my 3- and 5yo boys. I like it; they don’t. Or worse, they demand it and I groan. Inwardly, usually. But we’ve had some good successes recently, which makes happy readers, and listeners of us all.

Harry Hungry by Steven Salerno is about a baby whose appetite grows, literally, out of control. Salerno’s retro illustrations, and the fanciful images of baby Harry eating ever-larger items, are delightful visuals to accompany a pleasantly simple text:

Harry headed outside. He ate the flower bed. He ate the garden hose. He munched the mailbox!

Salerno’s bio says he’s a graduate of Parsons School of Design. His design background is clear in this cool, funny, attractive book.

David Lucas’ Robot and the Bluebird is more lovely than cool. A broken robot and a homeless bluebird become friends, and give each other things the other needs. It’s a timeless story, made fresh with Lucas’ sweet but not saccharine story and pictures.

Leslie Patricelli is a longtime favorite in our house. I’ve read her board books, like Quiet Loud, countless times, yet didn’t tire of them. Her new picture book, Higher! Higher!, is very like the board books. A girl goes to the park with her dad and asks him to push her on the swing. She goes higher and higher, and the illustrations show this fantasy taken to its nth degree. Loyal readers will recognize other Patricelli characters, like the baby and the dog. The book has only a handful of words beyond those of the title, but there’s much to see, and charm, in the acrylic-painted pages.

Emily Gravett’s art, in The Odd Egg, is a fetching combination of pencil and watercolor.

All the birds had laid an egg.

All except for Duck.

Duck’s lack of egg isn’t hard for a grownup reader to figure out; Duck’s a he, not a she. So he finds an egg–a big, beautiful speckled one.

The other birds’ eggs hatch one by one in sequentially wider pages. Duck’s, though, does not. Until…

I won’t give away the ending. It’s a clever one, and funny. Duck’s not the one with the last laugh; it’s us, the readers.

All the books above received multiple readings this week. I wonder if part of their appeal, both to the boys and to me, is that they’re by author/illustrators. In music I tend to favor singer/songwriters, and I suspect the same bias in many of the books we like.