Girl Detective

Around the time Guppy was born, I spent a fair amount of time participating in online reading challenges. I soon discovered that these interfered with the spontaneity and enjoyment of my reading. Sometimes, though, the challenges are enough in line with what I want to read anyway, or they give enough leeway to choose, that they still draw me. Such was last year’s From the Stacks challenge, which I read about at one of my favorite book blogs, Pages Turned.

I set out the books I wanted to read. Instead of the suggested five, I chose ten–five graphic and five prose novels. I took several pictures, trying to get the book ambience just right. (Does it strike anyone else that the shelf pics of book blogs are something akin to book porn?) I then found I can’t post pictures on my blog, which is just as well. I’m hard put enough to post regularly without something else to obsess nerdishly over. It is also just as well, because of those ten, I read only five. Of those, I loved only one; several of the others I didn’t even much like. Additionally, I veered off my list to read seven others from the shelves, nearly all of which I liked a great deal. (Several of which were quick-read graphic novels, in case this sounds more impressive than it is.)

I am reminded once again that online book challenges aren’t for me. I’ve begun using Gurulib to log my books and my considerable to read/watch/listen titles. My hope for this year (I prefer hopes to goals; I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a simple transposition makes them gaols) is to read two shelf books a month, to continue my library patronage, and to keep book buying to a minimum. I count over 100 shelf books (gulp) so even if I manage my hope, I still will reduce my home stash by less than a quarter. But this is my annual memo to self that I hope to shop and select from the home shelves as I can, rather than haring off after every challenge and alluring coupon.

Next up: locusts, heavy at times, followed by blowing and drifting frogs.

(I’m tired of this winter; can you tell?)

In a grievous lapse in taste, this week’s Project Runway episode, Raw Talent, challenged the designers to make wrestling costumes for women of the WWE. Absurd and entertaining, yes, but a showcase for the contestants’ ability to design a women’s fashion line? No. Just no.

Like the avant-garde challenge, this one was suited to Chris. Also like that challenge, he and Christian fully embraced it and produced spectacular ensembles. Jillian’s was good, Sweet P struggled, Rami thought that draping an ample bosom in brightest pink was an OK idea, but Ricky missed the mark by creating a bathing suit, not a wrestling costume.

Five are now left. Most fans I talk to predict that the final three will be Rami, Christian and Jillian. The latter’s utter lack of emotion (last night’s example, the flate restatement of her client’s exuberant reaction, “She loved it.”) does not have me looking forward to that. Sweet P and Chris are far more vibrant and interesting, though probably not as skilled as Miss J.

Check out Project Rungay, and Manolo’s recap for more snip-sniping.

“Baby” Guppy is two today. He is a sweet, good-natured toddler with a sturdy build, and already has lost a great deal of his baby roundness. Like his older brother Drake, (or more likely, in imitation of him), Guppy loves cars, music and books. Unlike Drake, though, he loves to color. He’s long been talking, and does a pretty good job of making himself understood. I cherish the mispronunciations that I know will pass so soon, like buh-bloon, senk oo (thank you), fots and big pi-yuh (big pile), which signifies a large amount of any item (cars, milk, mac and cheese, books, etc.) Two years ago our lives developed new depth when Guppy arrived to complete our little family.

The last issue, #60, of Brian K. Vaughan’s series Y the Last Man was just released, so I thought I’d go back to the beginning with Volume 1: Unmanned and read through to the end. Y is Yorick, literally the last man on Earth when a mysterious plague wipes out every male mammal with a Y chromosome. Yorick, along with his last monkey, the male Ampersand, go undercover to track down his mother and sister. He meets up with Agent 355, a member of the covert group The Culper Ring, and she is reluctantly pressed into protecting him. Unmanned sets the stage for the series with strong characters and a good mystery.

For other books I’ve read, and for the ridiculously long list of books I think I’d like to read, visit my library at Gurulib.

Rucka’s Queen and Country comic-book and novel series is at a temporary stopping point, so I thought I’d go back to Whiteout, the excellent graphic novel that contains the first appearance of British intelligence officer, Tara Chace. Chace is undercover, helping out U. S. Marshall Carrie Stetko, who’s been exiled to Antarctica because a former assignment went wrong. Members of a science expedition team keep turning up dead, and the investigation is slowed by the brutal weather, and sabotage. Stetko is a powerful heroine, and Chace (aka Lily Sharpe, in this book) is a good complement. Whiteout is a good story, well told in words and pictures, that will please fans of mystery and spy fiction.

For other books I’ve read, and that I hope to read, visit my library at Gurulib.

The ice is the windiest place on earth. Katabic winds blowing from the Polar plateau down to the ocean. Fast.

320 an hour kilometers fast, sometimes. With that sort of windchill, the temp plummets into the triple-digits.

Wind kicks up snow that’s lain on the Ice for thousands of years, tosses it through the air. Destroys visitbility, you can’t see six inches in front of you, can’t tell the ground from the sky.

That’s called a whiteout.

Miss Austen Regrets, this past Sunday’s entry in the PBS Masterpiece series, The Complete Jane Austen, received decidedly mixed reviews. I enjoyed it, though. Like the better adaptations, it made me want to learn more.

Those who didn’t like the production, like Maureen Ryan, said it relied too much on details of Jane’s life. This would help explain why MAR seems to have been better received by the readership at Austenblog, who name Olivia Williams’s performance and the letter-burning scene at the end as particular high points.

I enjoyed Gillian’s Anderson’s prefatory remark that so little historical record remains of Jane that we can only imagine her life. I thought Olivia Williams made an interesting and complicated Jane, and I really liked the scene where Miss Austen sees her books on display at the Prince Regent’s, and where she tells her niece that the only way to have a man like Mr. Darcy is to make him up. I also appreciated how the adaptation highlighted how Austen’s novels are more than romances–they’re each a different investigation into the social and financial pressures to marry, among many other things.

I did dislike some things, as well. There was shaky, handheld camera work, which should have stopped being in vogue, and is hardly needed to convey life in Austen’s time. There were long-held shots on domestic and outdoor images, which indicated to me that the creators were hard-pressed to extend the few known details of Austen to 90 minutes. This is an interesting contrast to the recent versions of Persuasion, Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park, which tried to long, complex novels into an all-too-brief hour and a half.

I’m noticing a trend that the adaptations Janeites like are not liked by critics, who don’t get all the details that were right, while the adaptations that take the most liberties annoy those who know better, but end up delighting those who don’t. In Entertainment Weekly this week, Becoming Jane gets a B+ while The Jane Austen Book Club, based on Karen Joy Fowler’s well-detailed book, only gets a C+. This was the reverse appraisal of Richard Roeper when the films came out, and he seemed rather more well informed on Jane than I would have thought.

Miss Austen Regrets seems to have been better received by lovers of Jane than by critics in general, perhaps because it was attentive to details like the order of the novels, if not her hats.

I was putting together tea and a snack for our family, when Drake called out, “Mom, I want toast with butter and honey.”

Since I’m trying to discourage “I want” and encourage asking politely, I didn’t answer immediately.

“MOM! I want toast with butter and honey! I want toast with butter and honey!”

Pause, as he waited for a response that didn’t come.

“MOM! DO YOU HEAR ME?”

My husband G. Grod and I started to laugh. I’m sure half the block heard him, at that volume.

“Yes, Drake.” I said. “I heard you before, but I didn’t hear you asking nicely.”

Drake’s voice dropped to a normal level. “Oh. PLEASE can I have toast with butter and honey?”

“Yes, dear, it’s coming.”

But by that time, 2yo Guppy started a refrain. “Buddah an’ hunny! Buddah an’ hunny!”

I looked at G. Grod. We sighed in tandem.

The groundhog saw his shadow, so we’re in for six more weeks of what feels like the longest, coldest, darkest winter ever. To bolster my flagging spirits, I have a new bulb in my sun box, a new journal to write in, and a new edition of a favorite book to re-read.

The suicide-awareness billboards are everywhere in the Twin Cities. Take care of yourself. If you’re feeling blue, check out an online screening test like the one from NYU Medical Center, and contact your health care provider if you’re worried. And if you’re worried about someone else, say so, or ask if you can help.

Minnesota has moved its Republican and Democratic caucuses up from March to “Super Tuesday” February 5, 2008. The March date of previous years meant the caucuses had little impact to the nation.

Go to CaucusFinder for your precinct and caucus location so you can participate in the democratic process, no matter what party you choose.

From MPR, “How to participate in Minnesota’s precinct caucuses”:

DEMOCRATS:

The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s presidential preference ballot is binding on 72 yet-to-be-chosen delegates to the Democratic National Convention, as long as the candidate clears a 15 percent threshold in one of the state’s eight congressional districts. Minnesota’s 16 superdelegates are not bound by the vote.

Votes for president are accepted between 6:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. at more than 4,000 DFL precinct caucuses. Caucus-goers can make presidential picks without sticking around to elect officers, choose delegates to county and Senate district conventions or shape the party’s platform.

REPUBLICANS:

The GOP’s nonbinding presidential straw poll does not commit the state’s 41 delegates to the Republican National Convention. Caucus-goers can cast their votes when more than 4,000 GOP caucuses begin at 7 p.m.

By participating in precinct caucuses, supporters of presidential candidates can position themselves to eventually become delegates to the national convention and vote for their contender.

INDEPENDENCE PARTY:

The Independence Party of Minnesota holds more than 70 caucuses starting at 7 p.m., plus an online virtual caucus that runs for the next month at its Web site: http://www.mnip.org/.

Cook’s Eleanor Roosevelt, a selection of my book group, is not one I would have picked up on my own. I’m glad to have read it, though, especially in the current political season. Eminently readable, ER the book carefully documents Roosevelt’s life up till FDR was elected president. It ends with a huge list of notes and sources; only a few notes interrupt the text.

ER the person is a fascinating companion for the 500+ pages. Born into an aristocratic family plagued by alcoholism and depression, she goes on to become one of the most influential women in politics, though her work was frequently behind the scenes. She was a tireless and diplomatic supporter of both her husband and of women’s causes, even when these sometimes (and they often did) diverged. It was a good reminder that many of the things we take for granted–forty-hour work weeks, 8-hour workdays, maternity healthcare and leave, among many other things–were things other women worked to bring into law.

Much that’s been written on the lives of ER and FDR focuses on their extramarital relationships. I found that Cooke carefully detailed the evidence for these, while also showing that the two had a supportive, loving marriage in other ways, and one that enabled each of them to go on to significant personal success and accomplishment. Their marriage, like ER as a person, was complicated.

The narrative sometimes jumped around in time, and Cooke so often listed the many upper-class companions of the Roosevelt’s lives that I skimmed them. Further, family trees or an index of people along with their nicknames would have been very helpful. Many people had more than one nickname; it was hard to follow, and I wished also for some explanation of where the panoply of alternate names came from. But the book overall was so thorough and so engaging, like its subject, that these are minor complaints about a work I enjoyed and learned from.

This week’s selection for Take-Up’s Monday Night Noir series at the Parkway was Sam Fuller’s Underworld U.S.A., which is not available on DVD. Though his film’s aren’t widely known, Fuller is often included on lists of “auteur” directors:

From Wikipedia:

In film criticism, the 1950s-era auteur theory holds that a director’s films reflect that director’s personal creative vision, as if they were the primary “auteur” (the French word for “author”).

Auteur theory has had a major impact on film criticism ever since it was advocated by film director and film critic François Truffaut in 1954. “Auteurism” is the method of analyzing films based on this theory or, alternately, the characteristics of a director’s work that makes her or him an auteur. Both the auteur theory and the auteurism method of film analysis are frequently associated with the French New Wave and the film critics who wrote for the influential French film review periodical Cahiers du cinéma.

In the film, a 14 year old boy, Tolly Devlin, sees the silhouette of a man beaten to death by four men. His father was the victim, and he declares he’ll seek vengeance on the killers. He soon becomes a criminal himself, and bounces through the correction system, until he stumbles on a way to take his revenge on the men, who have become national crime bosses. The adult Tolly, played by Cliff Robertson, works both with the mob and the government, and plays them both for his own ends. Ultimately, though, he is the doomed hero of a noir movie, without hope of redemption either from a mother figure, or his lover. Shot, he collapses underneath a “Give Blood Now” poster.

Unlike most noir films, Underground, U.S.A. doesn’t have a femme fatale. Tolly’s lover is a hooker with a heart of gold, instead. Even though it was made about a decade later than most classics of the genre, it contains the noir theme of an ethically wavering man whose future is menaced by threats from the past. Fuller’s film is full of bitter humor and images. Most interesting, I thought, was the plot point that the mob opened espresso shops, not bars, as fronts for drugs and prostitution. The audience found this hilarious each time it was mentioned; perhaps it was the foretelling of Starbucks, et al.

Next week’s noir at the Parkway is Monday February 4, 2008 with Our Man in Havana. It is written by Grahame Green and directed by Carol Reed, the same team responsible for The Third Man. It is also not available on DVD; revival screenings like this one are rare treats.

GQ lists the ten best “guy” films “you” haven’t seen (quotaton marks, mine, and link from A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago.) I felt rather smug that I’d seen the first four on the list: Rififi, Croupier, The Limey and The Matador. One of the remaining five, Point Blank, was given to my husband, G. Grod, for Christmas, so we’ll see it soon. Of the other five, though, I was abashed to find I hadn’t heard of three: The Last Detail, The Sand Pebbles and The Beat that My Heart Skipped.

Interestingly, Rififi, The Limey and The Matador were all three recommended by my friend The Big Brain, a guy. Croupier, though, was recommended to me by my gal pal Rock Hack, who said she thought I’d like the lead actor, some guy named Clive Owen. It was a good call, both on the film and on Clive.

I loathed the 2007 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, shown on PBS’s Masterpiece theater as part of The Complete Jane Austen. Dr. Who’s Billie Piper is miscast as Fanny Price, whose characterization seems to consist almost entirely of her chasing wildly after someone or something, or pouting at or about Edmund. Austen’s Fanny is ethical to a fault, self-effacing, and quiet. Piper’s voluptuous blond prettiness would be much more suited to the role of Harriet Smith in Emma. The movie’s 90 minutes condenses Austen’s complex story to a caricature of itself, leaving out many critical plot points, like Fanny’s return to her family at Portsmouth. This adaptation glosses over much of the subtleties of Austen’s humor, while the scene at the end when Edmund realizes his love for Fanny is played so broadly that I cringed.

I’ve enjoyed the two other adaptations in the PBS series–Persuasion and Northanger Abbey. Persuasion was distinguished by the tense pauses in conversation that conveyed much of what had to go unsaid because of the conversational conventions and constraints of the time. Northanger Abbey did an excellent job of portraying Catherine’s romantic imagination, and alluding to the timelessness of teenage hormones. It did a good job with Austen’s sense of humor and propriety. Both these adaptations weren’t as good as their sources, but reminded me fondly of the books, and made me want to read them again.

Mansfield Park (2007), though, made me want to flee to the book, if only to get away from such a poor representation of it. Read the book, or rent the Patricia Rozema adaptation. It takes some broad departures from the text in Fanny’s character; this earned the scorn of ardent Jane-ites. But it is a well-made, well-cast film that does more justice to what many consider Austen’s most complex novel. The learned ladies at Austenblog didn’t care for Rozema’s Mansfield Park, so on that we’ll have to disagree. But they’re a wonderful resource for all things Austen if you want to learn more.

I’ve set out to learn more about film noir, so I watched Out of the Past, with Robert Mitchum as smart detective with flexible morals who gets stupid around Judy Greer’s femme fatale. Kirk Douglas shines as an oily criminal.

Time Out Film Guide says it’s “once seen, never forgotten.” It’s beautiful and haunting. I hoped for Mitchum’s escape, even while knowing, as his character did, that he was doomed.

My husband and I were surprised to see the original of a scene we’d just watched in episode 2, Gnothi Seauton, of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. In Out of the Past, Mitchum fights with his former partner, then Judy Greer shoots him. Mitchum asks why she did, and she replies, “Because you wouldn’t.” This scene appears almost verbatim in the Terminator episode, between Sarah Connor, who had been threatening an old acquaintance, and Summer Glau’s Cameron, who shoots him. I’ve submitted this trivia to IMDB, and will wait to see if it’s accepted.

A reminder: Semicolon hosts the Saturday Review of books. I found this through Mental Multivitamin, and I enjoy the community of reviewers. It’s interesting to read differing and similar views of books I’ve read, and check out reviews of books I want to read.

Robert Fulford, at the National Post (link from Arts and Letters Daily) skips the whole religion is bad/good dichotomy in defense of art. Loving great art does not make you good, neither does creating it, he notes. So, he asks,

What, then, does it guarantee? Those who give it their time and love are offered the chance to live more expansive, more enjoyable and deeper lives. They can learn to care intimately about music, painting and books that have lasted for centuries or millennia. They can reach around the globe for the music, the images and the stories they want to make their own.

Fulford’s is a short piece, and he’s probably singing to the choir. Yet it’s a good reminder to give a piece of art more than a few seconds of your time. Really look at it, don’t just take a picture or videotape it to consider it later. Read a book, then read another book related to it; come at things from a different angle. Do the same with a film. Listen to music and don’t do anything else. Put aside multi-tasking for the moment. As the author of Mental Multivitamin continually exhorts us, “Read, Think, Learn.”

Oscar Nominations were announced earlier in the week, though they’ve been somewhat eclipsed by Heath Ledger’s untimely death. Note to young Hollywood: Just say no. Sheesh.

I’ve seen only two of the best-film nominees–Juno and Michael Clayton. Both were excellent. I have several more to see, though, if I’m going to feel at all informed about the competition. It was an Oscar season of years past, probably the one after Drake was born, that inspired me to start my annual film challenges. I’d seen none of the films; I’d seen no films in a long time. I’d allowed a baby to keep me from one of the things I love, so I rearranged my priorities, set myself a challenge, and have seen lots and lots of films since.

I use the Oscars as a guide, not a list. There are lots of good movies that don’t get nominated for Oscars, and plenty of mediocre movies that do. The foreign and documentary films seem to have an especially poor selection process.

I had a few “wherefore art thou” moments going over the nominees. The Bourne Ultimatum was a very good film. It should have been considered for bigger awards. Knocked Up had some of the funniest writing this year, and newcomer Christopher Mintz-Plasse stole all his scenes in Superbad.

My plan this year is to see There Will be Blood, No Country for Old Men, and Persepolis, as soon as I can. They’ve been the best reviewed films and ones I think I will enjoy. Sweeney Todd, Into the Wild, and I’m Not There also sound worthwhile. All these films also sound as if they’re good as a whole. Many of the others boast good aspects, like a performance or the cinematography, but not enough holistically to draw me. I’m curiously indifferent about Atonement; it feels like a film calculated to win awards.

From Oscar.com:

80th Academy Awards - Nominations

LIVE Telecast: Sunday, February 24, 2008

Performance by an actor in a leading role
George Clooney in “Michael Clayton”
Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood”
Johnny Depp in “Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”
Tommy Lee Jones in “In the Valley of Elah”
Viggo Mortensen in “Eastern Promises”

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Casey Affleck in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”
Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men”
Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Charlie Wilson’s War”
Hal Holbrook in “Into the Wild”
Tom Wilkinson in “Michael Clayton”

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Cate Blanchett in “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”
Julie Christie in “Away from Her”
Marion Cotillard in “La Vie en Rose”
Laura Linney in “The Savages”
Ellen Page in “Juno”

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Cate Blanchett in “I’m Not There”
Ruby Dee in “American Gangster”
Saoirse Ronan in “Atonement”
Amy Ryan in “Gone Baby Gone”
Tilda Swinton in “Michael Clayton”

Achievement in directing
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”, Julian Schnabel
“Juno”, Jason Reitman
“Michael Clayton”, Tony Gilroy
“No Country for Old Men”, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
“There Will Be Blood”, Paul Thomas Anderson

Best motion picture of the year
“Atonement”
“Juno”
“Michael Clayton”
“No Country for Old Men”
“There Will Be Blood”

I’m with Tom and Lorenzo of Project Rungay on this one: Christian was robbed. Yes, he made the same 80’s era shrunken jacket, but he did the most with the most. The jeans, especially with the sleeve detail, were more impressive to me than Ricky’s or Sweet P’s, though both of theirs were probably more retail-able.

My favorite moment was Jillian’s weird meltdown where she whimpered, “I’m bleeding everywhere.” Rami came over and said, “I don’t see anything,” then Sweet P told her to hold it together till midnight. Her “breakdown” was barely above a whisper.

Readers at A List of Things… hijacked a comment thread till they got their own.

Has anyone else noticed that Heidi Klum is dressing as if she’s hiding a bump? Any rumors out there that’s she’s pregnant?

I caught Road to the Runway, the prologue to Season 3, and was interested to see Simone, Jillian and Steven auditioning. Were they Season 3 also-rans, I wonder, or did circumstances prevail against them?

Paprika, a Japanese anime film from last year, is wild and visually stunning. I wanted to like it, but the more I think on it, the more it bothers me. Ultimately it’s a fanboy fantasy, and a feminist nightmare.

In the near future, psychotherapists have technology to record and enter dreams (think Until the End of the World, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). The team responsible is headed by an attractive but buttoned down woman and a gluttonous geek boy. The woman’s alter ego in dreams is the Paprika of the title. Someone steals and subverts the technology, and dreamworlds collide, then intrude disastrously into reality. My favorite part of the film is the parade of dreams–the color, image and music all combine for a walloping sensory experience. What happens to the female doctor, though, is beyond apology for me.

She is threatened multiple times by men who say they are going to play rough with her. One tries to rape her, and submerges a dream hand inside her, then rips off her skin from the inside, so she is naked and unconscious when another character rams tentacles down her throat. Later, she becomes a child, and drinks the dark dream stuff spread by the huge, nude male villain , which I found too close an allusion to fellatio. Finally, she rebels against her dream self and rescues the glutton-geek, declaring her love for him, then later saying she’s going to marry him and take his name.

The plot is murky and while the images are provocative, too often I found them offensive.