Girl Detective

Alan Moore and Frank Miller have done laudable things for the comics world, but I suspect that their dark work in the 80’s (Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke) helped scuttle comics as reading material for kids. Darker and with adult themes, comics of the 80’s and beyond earned a wider audience and widespread critical acclaim. But comics also seemed to lose their roots as the coveted items from the grocery store bought with allowance money. Yes, Archie and the Ducks were still out there, but the plethora of superhero comics and popular adaptations that I remember as a kid all but disappeared.

I’ve been pleased to see more young reader and all ages books on the shelves of the comic shop. Yesterday I was happily surprised to see three titles from imprint Boom! Kids comics, all for young children. My two sons, 3yo Guppy and 5yo Drake, were thrilled, and have been carrying them around ever since. We got Cars, The Incredibles, and The Muppet Show. More titles are coming and all with be ongoing. And clearly demand is out there; the titles sold out immediately to retailers, though they can still be found in stores.

Additionally, Toon Books has put out some wonderful hardcover comic books for kids. By request, I read Luke on the Loose, by kid favorite Harry Bliss (of Diary of a Spider, Worm and Fly) and Stinky by Eleanor Davis, umpteen times last week.

If you and your child are looking to expand horizons, check out some of these new titles and books. The mainstream media spent much of the last three decades being shocked that comics aren’t just for kids anymore; they missed that comics often weren’t for kids anymore. Perhaps a true all-ages revolution has begun.

I wish I could use prose as witty and cutting as Jane Austen’s to describe how unpleasant I found Marvel’s comic-book adaptation of her Pride and Prejudice. If you want sparkling prose, I’ll refer you to the source novel. There is little I can say about the comic to its credit, other than it starts off with Austen’s famous introduction:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighborhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

From there the comic departs from Austen’s prose. It is a shame adapter Nancy Butler squandered such strong source material in the service of choices like a clumsy character introduction to the Bennet sisters. The art, though, is really where the offense of this adaptation lies.

The color palette is mostly orange and an ugly yellow. The panels on the pages vary wildly, but not in the service of the story. Tones are either dull or too bright, and the gloss of the paper detracts even further. The illustrations of the characters look more like stills taken from a movie than images that tell a story. And the look of the characters would be laughable if they weren’t so dear to me. They are shown with giant white teeth, exactly the same build, and the glossy glamour look is more B movie/soap opera than appropriate for Austen’s time. Marvel, meanwhile, adds insult to injury with intrusive, garish and inappropriate ads that interrupt the story.

The painted cover art, by Sonny Liew, is the one element I liked. (I also liked his work on Vertigo’s My Faith in Frankie and on Re-Gifters) The art style and colors are softer, and more suited to the story than that of the interior. Unfortunately, Marvel mucked up the cover trying to be clever with girl-magazine type headlines.

My only hope is that girls who buy this might be curious to check out the novel. Had Liew painted the interiors, if it used even more of Austen’s prose, and foregone those silly cover headlines, this could have been quite charming. As it is, even as an entry point, I can’t recommend it at all.

The second season of AMC’s Breaking Bad has begun. Bryan Cranston (yes, Hal the dad from Malcolm in the Middle) plays Walt, a sad-sack guy with terminal cancer and an unexpected baby on the way. Way overqualified as a high-school chemistry teacher, he decides to cook meth as a way to earn cash to leave to his family.

Cranston won a well-deserved Emmy for best actor in a drama for his work in season one. Season two’s first three episodes have all been exceptional television. Creator Vince Gilligan, who wrote many of the best X-Files episodes, focuses on the in-between actions and emotions that other mainstream shows gloss over. It’s riveting stuff. But don’t take my word for it. Stephen King rhapsodized about it recently, too, at Entertainment Weekly.

Edited to add: The prestigious Peabody awards, for excellence in electronic media, were announced, and Breaking Bad was one of only two prime time series to win an award (the other was Lost):

Bleak, harrowing, sometimes improbably funny, the series chronicled the consequences of a mild-mannered, dying science teacher’s decision to secure his family’s future by cooking methamphetamine.

From The Breakfast Club:

Claire: I have a really low tolerance for dehydration.

Andrew: I’ve seen her dehydrate, sir. It’s pretty gross.

Since winter seems unable to give up its death grip around here, I had another look at “10 Ways to Great Winter Skin” originally in the Feb 2009 In Style magazine, reprinted at Shine from Yahoo.

Particularly useful, I thought, is the assurance that having any old lip balm is more important than using an expensive one. I find, though, that petrolatum and SPF in formulas like Chapstick can be drying, so they’re a mixed blessing.

I also like the DIY humidifier of a damp washcloth hung on the doorknob. The cleaning and maintenance of humidifiers is a giant PITA, so I’m much more likely to do this.

At the Penguin blog, “In Search of Chandler,” the fascinating tale behind Penguin’s new set of covers for Raymond Chandler’s most famous novels on the 50th anniversary of his death:

Back in summer 2008, when we came up with the idea of reissuing a selection of four of Chandler’s most well-known books (The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, The Little Sister, and The Long Good-bye) we vaguely waved away the issue of getting hold of the actual covers….Easy, I thought. We get in touch with the Bodleian, they dig up copies of all of the books from the stacks, and then they whack the jackets on a scanner and whizz them over to our ftp site for me to send to our art department. And then I go home at 5.30 and run around fields and eat strawberries.

Wrong.

It’s a great story, and took me a little while to track down links to the new covers at Penguin UK, as they’re not yet for sale:

The Little Sister
The Lady in the Lake
The Long Goodbye
Farewell, My Lovely

The Penguin blog link was at Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind, whose “Ten Things to Read on the 50th Anniversary of Raymond Chandler’s Death” was linked to by The Morning News.

Bottle Rocket was the feature-film debut of oddball director Wes Anderson and his childhood friends Luke and Owen Wilson, the latter of whom shared writing duties, on this and Anderson’s subsequent critical darlings Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. They began with a short they showed at Sundance to get financing and went on to make this film.

As usual the Criterion Collection has done a bang-up job on the dvd of this film. The images are sharply transferred, the cover art is well matched to the film’s weird tone, and the plentiful extras include copies of Owen Wilson’s character Dignan’s hilarious notebook. (link from I Watch Stuff)

Dignan plans to pull off a heist and go on the lam with his recently released-from-the-nuthouse friend Anthony (Luke Wilson) and his curiously named friend Bob Mapplethorpe. The dialogue is fast and strange in a story more about the long-term realities of childhood friendships than armed robbery.

Here are just a few of the key ingredients: dynamite, pole vaulting, laughing gas, choppers - can you see how incredible this is going to be? - hang gliding, come on!

Dignan tries hard to act tough. Anthony projects vulnerability but clearly wants to protect Dignan from further injury in life. And Bob gets regularly beaten up by his older brother, played by a third Wilson brother, Andrew. This is sweet, funny, and just sad enough. I was thoroughly charmed.

Martin Ritt’s black and white noir-looking adaptation of John Le Carre’s Spy Who Came in from the Cold is bleak and beautiful. Richard Burton is Alec Leamas, an English spy. His voice and presence are modulated just enough so he doesn’t burst the bounds of the character. His acting was perhaps better suited to stage than film, but he looks appropriately harrowed and ravaged.

I’m a man, you fool. Don’t you understand? A plain, simple, muddled, fat-headed human being. We have them in the West, you know.

Claire Bloom, whose third husband was writer Phillip Roth, is lovely as a Communist co-worker.

The film is strikingly sharp in the new Criterion Collection edition, which includes an informative and entertaining interview with Le Carre done for the new edition. Alas, we had to watch the dvd over two nights, and I’m abashed to admit I couldn’t stay awake for either. My husband G. Grod had to explain the finer points of the complex plot. I highly recommend it in any case. The fault is more likely with me and parental fatigue, not with this classic film.

Phillip Becht, of Minneapolis’ Modern Cafe, at the City Pages, on three types of food:

1. Work eats
2. Kid eats
3. Family eats

His simple approach reminds me of Mark Bittman’s Mimimalist recipes.

I wish my kids ate a lot of broccoli. They do like the gingerbread spice cake and pizza sauce that I hide pureed broccoli in, though. Heh.

In the New York Times op ed, Mark Bittman explains why organic isn’t always better.

At Slate, Catherine Price asks Bittman and Deborah Madison for ideas to combat vegetable fatigue. Both are refreshingly honest, and Bittman’s final piece of advice is a winner. (Link from The Morning News)

The name, ChinDian, is pretty self explanatory. The chef, Nina, is Chinese. Her husband is Indian, and the cuisine at their restaurant is a blend. Friends and I visited recently and had a fabulous meal. We sampled five appetizers and devoured them all. The shrimp toast was crunchy on the outside with some chew in the middle with toothsome chunks of shrimp. The fried wontons were pleasantly non-greasy and utterly craveable. Crispy eggrolls and the chicken-chive dumplings were warm and savory, while the soft spring rolls tasted fresh and herbal.

To drink we tried the hot ginger tea, the cold ginger tea and the berry lemonade. All were pronounced excellent, though I favored the hot tea because it was a cold, wet night. I had the chow mai fun, fine rice noodles, with tofu. It was well seasoned, with excellent contrasting textures and flavors from sliced onion, carrot and the tofu; this dish easily can be gummy and lumpy. I also tried my neighbors’ mock duck broccoli and General Tso’s chicken; both had deep, rich flavors.

Chef Nina reminded us when we began to save room for dessert. It was hard with such a tempting array of items, but I managed, and was glad I did. The crepe with cream in berry sauce was not too sweet, topped generously with berries, and a wonderful complement and finish to a very good meal. I look forward to dining there again.

Rick Nelson of the Star Tribune recommended ChinDian along with Obento-Ya recently.

“Wheelhouse” is one of those terms that I figured out in context quickly. In someone’s wheelhouse means something they’d be especially good at. The term was used several times in Season 5 of Top Chef, but I kept forgetting to look it up.

According to Urban Dictionary and Word Detective, “wheelhouse” is a baseball term meaning the area of greatest potential for a hitter. More generally it means in one’s area of expertise. It likely originates either from a boat term for the elevated captain’s wheel room, or a locomotive term for the swinging power of the roundhouse.

From the NYT, “When Economy Sours, Tootsie Rolls Soothe Souls”

The recession seems to have a sweet tooth. As unemployment has risen and 401(k)’s have shrunk, Americans, particularly adults, have been consuming growing volumes of candy

I can relate: on today’s Target trip, I bought pretzels, potato chips, Dots, spice drops, red Swedish fish, Hershey’s Special Dark bars and Orbit gum in Bubblemint and Sweet Mint flavors. No party or anything. Just ’cause. (Link from The Morning News.)

Tomorrow, Wednesday 3/25/9 Great Performances on PBS features Ian McKellen as King Lear, for those like me who missed him in that role at the Guthrie Theater in 2007.

Sunday, 3/29/9 Masterpiece on PBS begins the new Andrew Davies adaptation of Dicken’s Little Dorrit.

Apparently 5yo Drake and 3yo Guppy can eat at Punch pizza once a week for years and not tire of it. Not me, so I’ve been trying to expand our family-dining horizons and tried the recently opened Black Sheep, whose coal-fired pizza is different enough from Punch’s wood-fired pies to feel like a change.

Black Sheep has two sizes, a handful of menu pizzas, then a long list for making your own. Though not as fast as Punch (what could be?) the pizza was delicious, more evenly cooked, and much less oily. We were in a hurry, so didn’t try any of the alluring appetizers, or the home-made ice cream sandwiches. But we devoured both small pizzas, and will happily try Black Sheep again, though only in good weather. Street parking was sparse so we had far to walk on a day with a vicious wind chill. Rain, especially like today’s, would also be unpleasant for the long walk.

The last in the noir series I’ve attended these past weeks, The Phantom Lady was enjoyable for its mood, though not its plot, which made little sense. A depressed man who’s been stood up, Scott meets a sad lady in a bar, asks her to a show, drops her off, returns home to find his wife dead. He’s the main suspect, and when police start questioning his story, no one knows a thing. Enter his cute assistant, played by Ella Raines, nicknamed “Kansas”. Determined to prove him innocent, she goes all girl detective to prove the witnesses are lying. In the midst of this, one of Scott’s friends shows up, and is quickly revealed as the bad guy to the audience, though its not obvious to the others. Franchot Tone plays the comically over-the-top murderer to very entertaining effect. Very good, probably not great, but worth watching for the performances by Raines and Tone, and for a scary-trippy jazz-den scene.

When I asked a bookstore-manager friend why his peers might not have found my on-hold mix up funny, he sighed. Meyers is the current bete-noir of the used bookstores, he said. Teen girls and their moms are forever calling and asking for copies, when the few that come in fly back out again immediately.

So when Jessa Crispin got snarky about Twilight yesterday at Blog of a Bookslut, I was amused, and followed her link to a longer article by Jenny Turner in the London Review of Books. Turner read the books, saw the movie, and wrote about them well. I can now better justify my Twilight disgust without reading the books or seeing the movie. Thank you, Jenny Turner.

For more interesting, complex takes on the vampire myth, start at the beginning if you haven’t read Dracula by Bram Stoker. Then try Agyar by Steve Brust, Anno Dracula by Kim Newman and Sweetblood by Pete Hautman.

Toni Morrison’s A Mercy just didn’t work for me. At only 167 pages, I thought I’d finish it quickly; it took me days. There were myriad ostensibly sympathetic characters, yet none of them felt deep, connected and complex enough to engage me. Morrison switches between third and first person narration among the characters; this only made me feel further alienated from this book.

Don’t be afraid. My telling can’t hurt you in spite of what I have done and I promise to lie quietly in the dark–weeping perhaps or occasionally seeing the blood once more–but I will never again rise up and bare teeth.

and

Lina is unimpressed by the festive mood, the jittery satisfaction of everyone involved, and had refused to enter or go near it. That third and presumably final house that Sir insisted on building distorted sunlight and required the death of fifty trees.

Morrison is a great writer; her Beloved is one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read. This book, which addresses some of the same issues, felt like a faint echo of that work. It’s uncomfortable not to like a work that others have praised and one by a great artist. But my reaction to it is mine, and the opinion of this blogger. YMMV.

Most reviews have been positive (EW and NYT,) and the book made many best-of-2008 lists. The Atlantic notes the anachronisms of the dialogue, among other things, a critique echoed in this mixed review from The Telegraph.

Kenley Collins of Project Runway Season 5 arrested for assault. Cat, laptop, apples and water? It sounds like a Bravo TV challenge: attack your sleeping fiance with only the items at hand.

Bob Dylan annoys neighbors. Media retaliates with slew of headlines. My favorite: Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man! Fix your toilet!

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, a teen comedy/romance based on the YA novel by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, is utterly charming, if not that original. I was reminded of Better Off Dead and Adventures in Babysitting, both of which I loved when I was in high school. I imagine this is the example of those movies for this generation.

Michael Cera is adorable as Nick, pining for his skanky ex-girlfriend Tris.

I never wash my pants. I like to keep the night on them.

Kat Dennings is not quite believable as the doesn’t-know-she’s gorgeous Norah. Ari Graynor is hilariously innappropriate as the drunk friend.

Is that a turkey sandwich?

Cera’s gay bandmates are a nice, modern touch. And there are great cameos by John Cho, Andy Samberg, Seth Myers, and Devendra Banhart. This isn’t rocket science but I found it funny, sweet and involving.

5yo Drake continues to oppose the bike we got him A YEAR AGO and is content to excel at the trike. One of his preschool cohorts made fun of him yesterday, and he didn’t notice:

Boy: Drake, YOU ride a TRICYCLE?!

Drake: Yeah!

3yo Guppy is practicing his soccer ball handling, unaware that the trike should be his.

It was a lovely walk, about 7 blocks (.7 miles, I think) kicking and pedaling.

I just found a new home for our double stroller. If things keep up, the boys won’t miss it.