Girl Detective

Here’s some of what was under the tree for 5yo Drake and nearly 3yo Guppy this year:

325 Knex
100 Lincoln Logs
48-piece giant Tyrannasaurus Rex puzzle
48-piece giant Fairy Tale Castle puzzle
24-piece Giant Fire Truck puzzle
36-piece Pirate puzzle
68-piece Lego Building Toy set
82-piece Lego Rebel Scout Speeder

Total: 731 pieces (I fear for the future. Will we break 1000 next year?)

I am thankful that my thoughtful in-laws took some time on Christmas Eve to thin out the boys’ toys so there’d be room for the new ones. The boys didn’t even notice anything was gone. I’ve already had to do several search and rescue missions for missing pieces–some of the Knex are really tiny! Those were a favorite with all the boys: Drake, Guppy, dad G. Grod, Uncle P, and Grampa,

Growing up, my sisters and I had an LP of Captain Kangaroo Introduces You to the Nutcracker Suite.

From Wikipedia:

A narrated adaptation of the Nutcracker Suite was released as “Captain Kangaroo (Bob Keeshan) Introduces You To The Nutcracker Suite”; it is believed that this was produced some time in the 1960s although a copyright date is not available. This work is remarkable for the lyrics that were created as an integral part of the narration.

It was a particular favorite of my sister Ruthie. We listened to it over and over. The lyrics became ingrained in my head. So it was with surprise that, as an adult, I learned that there were no words to The Nutcracker Suite. Captain Kangaroo and team had made up lyrics to tell the story. So now, whenever I hear the strains of one of the most popular holiday arrangements ever, I hear the lyrics from the Overture in my head:

He’s so handsome,
Funny and clever.
I will keep him,
Keep him forever.

Stop! Don’t you
Dare go near him
You will hurt him
Fred . . . for that
Nut you’ve got will
Never fit
Inside his head.

This is NOT a cherished holiday memory for me.

Yet another well-reviewed film from last year that I hadn’t gotten around to, Julian Schabel’s Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a sad, gorgeous film. A high living French magazine editor, Jean-Dominique Bauby, suffers a sudden stroke, which leaves him almost totally paralyzed, or with “locked-in syndrome”. He makes small but significant progress, both physically and emotionally, and transcribes a book through blinking his eye. The acting is less the thing than the inventive ways Schnabel uses to convey Bauby’s singular, skewed perspective. Chosen by film critic Michael Phillips as one of the best of 2007, this is a lovely, bittersweet film.

2yo Guppy, crying. I wake, and stumble into his room.

Guppy wails, “I can’t see anything!”

I respond, “That’s ’cause it’s night time, honey. Night is dark.”

He pleaded for a dimmed light; I didn’t feel up to protesting.

At the top of NYT movie critic A.O. Scott’s best list of 2007, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, is a grim little film about illegal abortion in 80’s Romania. It’s a spare, devastating story of two college roommates and all the unpleasant details they must navigate when the event is set in motion. The acting is understated and moving. The film maintains a constant undercurrent of dread and fear about what happens next. And the story is told simply, with one camera only, highlighting the wrenching story and situations of the characters. Powerful stuff.

I wanted to laugh at Walk Hard. I did a few times, and I enjoyed seeing my boyfriend Paul Rudd as John Lennon. Maybe I saw it on a bad day, but I didn’t find it that funny, or funny enough to endure the stupid parts. Certainly, there was no moment when I laughed so hard we had to pause the movie, as with In Bruges. Not my cuppa, I guess.

Peter Weir’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is a film adaptation of many threads from Patrick O’Brian’s popular Aubrey/Maturin series, which my husband G. Grod is about halfway through reading. I’ve seen the film before, and was again impressed. Weir is a skilled director, the cast, led by Russell Crowe and Paul Betanny, is strong, the story compelling, and the photography of life at sea both beautiful and stirring. I haven’t yet read the O’Brian books, though I intend to. I am glad to have seen the movie on its own, so that the books might improve upon it, rather than detract from it, as happens too often if I read the book first.

Movie trivia: Russell Crowe learned to play violin for the film. About 27 miles of rope were used for the ship scenes.The rope was made special for the film, since rope of the time laid left, not right, as modern rope does.

There are a few book-based movies coming out, Revolutionary Road and The Road, and one I just saw, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Once I’d have rushed to read the book first. Now I’m going to try to read the book after. I’ll let you know if the results are promising.

I’m behind. In blogging, especially about books and movies. In responding to email, especially the comments on this blog, though I read and appreciate them all. (OK, not the mean or crazy ones. Or the Russian spam.) In cleaning my house. Doing my laundry, especially the new clothing from Christmas.

But since I’m having a moment of perspective, I think these are good problems to have. I’m seeing more movies and books than I can write about. I’m receiving more email than I’m able to respond to. I have a house, albeit a drafty one, that I can neglect for a bit. I have warm new clothes for me and my boys.

I’m working my way back out of the holiday hole. More posts and replies to comments to come, I hope. May all your problems have positive flip sides.

Julia Leigh’s Disquiet was highly recommended by my favorite book critic, Jennifer Reese of EW, who also chose it as a best book of 2008. I was not disappointed. It’s a short, sharp, painful novella. A woman leaves her abusive husband and returns with her two children to her mother’s chateau in France.

The stone stairs leading to the chateau were wide and shallow and worn like soap. The woman took hold of the doorknocker–it was a large bronze ring running through the nose of a great bronze bull–and weighed it in her hand. Knocked. They waited patiently, and their kind of patience was born more from exhaustion, from abandoning any expectation of easy gratification, than from gracious goodwill. She reached out to ruffle the boy’s hair, to give them both some courage. Knock-knock. And old woman answered. She was wearing her perennial uniform, a black dress and white apron, and her hair, grey now, was curled in a tidy bun. They stared at one another without speaking and between them passed an understanding of the unsung miracle of the door–one moment a person wasn’t there, and the next moment…there.

‘Hello Ida,’ said the woman calmly. ‘It’s me.’

Their homecoming is tempered both by their circumstances and a concurrent tragedy in the family. Leigh’s spare prose is chillingly effective at maintaining a sense of dread, along with a palpable tension between the living and the dead. I was reminded of the work of Muriel Spark and Ian McEwan. Disquieting, indeed.

Every year, I check out a few of the same books from my library branch’s holiday selection. I seek out the classics illustrated by my favorite artists, who include Trina Schart Hyman, Shirley Hughes, James Marshall, and Tomie dePaola. This year, I re-read Dickens’ Christmas Carol to myself, and managed, much to my amazement, to read the entirety of Dylan Thomas’ Child’s Christmas in Wales aloud to both 5yo Drake and 2yo Guppy. They didn’t sit still for all of it, but I repeatedly enticed them back with Hyman’s illustrations. Also, I could tell Drake was drawn to the rolling cadences of Thomas’ prose poem, which was a joy to read aloud.

What I appreciated this year in A Christmas Carol was how secular, not religious, its story was. I liked Dickens’ dry, ironic humor, used to politely skewer certain people or their habits. This contrasted with his rich descriptions:

There were great round, pot-bellied baskets of chesnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars; and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers’ benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people’s mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner.

So many commas and semicolons! Dylan Thomas was fond of commas as well:

Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the English and the bears before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the daft and happy hills bareback, it snowed and it snowed.

Happy holidays to all, and may you enjoy your seasonal favorites as well, be they food, books, family or friends.

On seeing that our new 16 month calendar started with September 2008.

Drake: We have to fast-backward the world.
(This took a while for me to figure out he meant rewind.)
Me: Only Superman can do that, honey.
Drake pauses, thinks: Is Superman real?
G. Grod: Sorry, bud. He’s a story.

Upon learning that the Hot Wheels set he wanted cost $20, more than he had in his piggy bank.

Drake: I need a money Halloween so I can buy the Triple Stunt Starter Set.
Me: Money Halloween?
Drake: Yeah, I go to the houses and instead of candy they give me money.
Me: Sorry, there’s no such thing as money Halloween. Try writing to Santa.

When 2yo Guppy wouldn’t play tackle.

Drake: Mom, we need a new child.
Me, laughing.

Does anyone else wish for extra categories? Here are ones I’d like:

Mild Acquaintace
I Hardly Knew Ye
Former Enemy, Now on Probation

I didn’t manage to see Across the Universe in the theater, though I wanted to. It would have been quite something on the big screen. But I enjoyed the 2-disc DVD a lot, in spite of the very mixed reviews when it came out.

Across the Universe is a musical about young lovers in NYC during the Vietnam era with songs of the Beatles as references and dialogue for the movie. The director, Julie Taymor, has a background in puppetry and theater; she created the stage version of The Lion King. I watched and was wowed by her films Titus and Frida, which convinced me along with The Lion King that I’d see anything she did. It might not be great, but even if it were a mess, it would be a spectacular, brilliant, mesmerizing one.

I found Across the Universe kind of messy in parts. Taymor’s vision was sometimes too out there and the movie slowed in the middle. But the talent of the mostly unknown cast, along with the sheer spectacle of the movie combined with oh-so-familiar music that was produced in ways that brought new aspects to it–all of these made me love Across the Universe. I was strongly reminded of the films of Baz Luhrmann. I watched each of the making-of extras, and they gave me an increased appreciation for this flawed but wonderful film. As the choreographer noted, it’s a film that’s surreal yet playful, as well as powerful and poignant.

Other reviews: New York Times
Roger Ebert
Entertainment Weekly
Village Voice
Chicago Tribune

Edited to add: I’m hugely excited about Taymor’s current project, especially because of her creative casting of the lead role.

I hate parenting books. The last thing I want to do after an exhausting day parenting my energetic, needy boys is read about parenting. I want a break! Television, movies and reading for pleasure suit that need much better.

Yet I am far from a perfect parent to 5yo Drake and 2yo Guppy, so I feel guilty about not reading the books. I know I’ve got much to learn, but I rebel against the books, whose advice I find hard to follow and not always applicable. At a recent playdate, a friend noticed my boys’ oppositional behavior, and suggested Supernanny. Why not, I thought, worn down by the boys and their frequent fighting, both with me and with each other. I got the book from the library. Three weeks went by. I renewed it. Another three weeks went by. I renewed it again. Finally I read it.

It’s easy to read, with pictures, big type size and a truly useful set of sections on typical problem areas like eating, playing with others, and bedtime. It is basic, and perhaps more focused on parent guidance than on child nurturing. But I am taking away a few pieces of advice, so it was time well spent.

On the futility of reasoning with toddlers:

Reasoning, pleading, bargaining, threatening–none of these work with [toddlers]. For these strategies to work, your child would need mental powers she just does not yet have. (p.32)

It’s okay to offer a toddler a choice between two acceptable alternatives. But offering a toddler lots of choices tells him that you don’t know what you’re doing–otherwise, why are you asking?–and that therefore he’s the boss. (p. 50)

Small children will always win [in these situations] because they don’t really understand what a bargain or a promise is all about. What you’re dangling in front of them in the form of a treat is just too tempting, and they will try their utmost to get it right now. And what you see as a trade-off, she sees as a rule that keeps changing–which, as everyone knows, is a rule that isn’t really a rule at all and doesn’t have to be followed. (p. 71)

On involving kids with daily tasks:

Small children need attention. When they don’t get it, they act up. The trouble is that there simply aren’t enough hours in the day for you to give your toddler the attention he wants and deal with everything else as well. When you have two or more kids, short of cloning yourself, you have to think of ways around the problem. (p. 77)

And some helpful advice I’m going to try, like earlier mealtimes for the kids, who tend to be hungry at 10:30 and 4:30, not noon and 6:30. And staggered bedtimes, so each boy can have a little one on one time before bed–kids aren’t the only ones who can use “divide and conquer” to their advantage. Heh, heh.

I went to the bookstore yesterday for a title my psychologist recommended. I knew the author and the area the book would be in. I checked the shelves, but didn’t find it. I continued checking in related areas, but didn’t find it. Then I asked for help. A kind bookseller led me directly to the book. It was in the area I’d been looking, sitting face out, prominently on the shelf in its own special section.

The book? Driven to Distraction by Hallowell and Ratey. The section? ADD.

*Sigh* I do not think my difficulty finding the book and its topic are unrelated.

In David J. Schwartz’s Superpowers, five college juniors in Madison, WI throw a party, drink beer and pass out. When they wake up, they don’t have hangovers, they have the superpowers of the book’s title: super strength, speed, invisibility, telepathy and flight. The book wonders what would happen to real kids in the real world if suddenly blessed–or is it cursed?–with superpowers.

Superheros is an older teen novel, featuring college protagonists struggling with real-life issues, in addition to their new problems. It’s also an introduction to superhero culture, perhaps best for fans of shows like Heroes or Smallville who haven’t yet become comic-book readers. I don’t think I’m the target reader; I’m too familiar with comic books dealing with similar themes, from early Spider Man and X-Men to Alan Moore’s Watchmen, to more recent comics like Powers and Runaways. For less geeky readers than me, though, this is an enjoyable young adult what-if tale.

Can it really be 25 years since I saw Risky Business in the theater? My friend J drove; she had a car. Also, she pretended to be my older sister, since I was only 15 and not technically allowed to see the movie. Tom Cruise was my first adolescent movie-star crush–he had me from the opening chords of “Old Time Rock n Roll.”

Watching it again, 25 years later, I felt the movie aged surprisingly well. It was definitely of its time, the go-go early eighties. But its theme of financial success at the cost of one’s soul is timeless. It’s a teen movie:

So, your folks are going out of town…

but it goes beyond the typical. The director and producers were trying to do more than a teen-sex movie, and I think they succeeded. Cruise looks impossibly young as the scared, sheltered, suburban teen Joel. Rebecca de Mornay projects a mix of tough vulnerability, kindness and calculation as a hooker with no heart of gold. They’re at the center of what I see now as a very dark, ironic morality tale.

The extras on the 25th anniversary disc are worth watching. They include screen tests of de Mornay and Cruise, whose chemistry and charisma were apparent early on. There’s commentary from other directors, like Amy Heckerling and Cameron Crowe, as well as interviews from the makers and actors from the film. Joe Pantoliano, who played Guido the Killer Pimp, notes that this is the film that “made” him. Also included is the director’s preferred ending, which is much darker than the one the studio insisted on. As such, it better fits the film, I think.

Elizabeth Bennet and Caroline Bingley are attending the event Take a Turn about the Room.

At Austenbook, a Pride and Prejudice homage to the Hamlet (Facebook News Feed Edition)

Link from Kate; thanks!

“Smoke up, Johnny!”

As an antidote to yesterday’s lovely article on gift giving to children, the Onion AV Club has “Fifteen Terrible Presents in TV and film”

My worst gift was from my well-meaning dad. I was sixteen and he got me an emergency CB radio for the car if I broke down. He was trying to keep me safe; I wanted a red-striped shirt from the Limited. Ah, youth.

Link from ALoTT5MA

My library has just increased the number of hold requests allowed to thirty, from twenty. Yay! Even more nerdish obsessing in the electronic card catalog for me. Thank you, librarians. You’re the best.

Though, ahem, I wouldn’t need to request so many holds at once if the movies and CDs circulated at a faster clip. Just sayin’.