Oh, Manolo the Shoe Blogger, you make me laugh:
sweet and gentle Simone, you had the banging eyebrows, but your dress sucked.
Adam’s PR assessment is good, but the comments are the thing at ALLoTT5MA
The fabulous Blogging Project Runway babes
And, of course, Bravo’s own Project Runway page
But, hello?, where’s the love at Everybody Loves Saturday Night?
#76 in my 2007 movie challenge was How to Marry a Millionaire, a classic good bad movie. Bacall, Grable, and Monroe play models who rent a posh NYC penthouse in order to lure a better class of suitor into marriage. Unsurprisingly, the scheme goes awry. They are forced to sell the furnishings in order to stay, and Grable and Monroe end up marrying for love, not money. Bacall thinks she does the same, but her ostensibly happy ending rang false, and her comeuppance was too slight.
The scheming sexism is a disappointment, as is the predictable story. For a film starring three beautiful actresses, there was a curious dearth of close-ups. And the seven-minute long orchestra intro, followed by long credits over loving shots of NYC, made me wonder if the movie was ever going to start. But there’s a sass and style that overcome the film’s faults. The costumes are by turns beautiful and deliberately outrageous, exemplified in a very funny modeling scene. All three end up renouncing their mercenary plan. And there are several surprisingly post-modern references to the stars’ previous famous work: Monroe wears an outfit named “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend”; Grable re-enacts her famous over-the-shoulder pose; and Bacall, defending the attractiveness of older men, remarks, “Look at Roosevelt, look at Churchill, look at that old fella–what’s his name–in The African Queen. Absolutely crazy about him.”
Enjoyable, as long as your expectations aren’t high.
#52 in my 2007 book challenge was 1001 Nights of Snowfall, written by Bill Willingham and illustrated by many. It’s a graphic novel original collection of linked short stories, set in Willingham’s mythical Fables world. Fables, for the uninitiated, is a monthly comic from the Vertigo line of DC Comics, very much in the tradition of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. It takes mythic elements–here, characters from fairy tales–and transforms with new, and very modern, twists on the ancient tales. In the series, a group of fables, e.g. Snow White, escaped a rampaging other-worldly Adversary and established a “safe” community within New York City.
1001 Nights of Snowfall has been sitting on my metaphorical shelf for some time. It is a series of short stories set within a larger frame. Snow White, as ambassador for Fabletown, visits a sultan in the East. He says he is going to marry her, then kill her. Instead, she beguiles him with stories, all of which provide details into the past of many of the Fables characters. As in all good fiction, the stories answer many questions, but beget even more.
As in the Sandman series, there are different artists for different stories. The amazing Charles Vess illustrates the framing story. The other stories are done by some of the brightest talents in the arts and comics world, all of whose work is beautifully suited to the fantastic world of the Fables.
My one concern, and it’s a big one, is Willingham’s disturbing sexism, which I’ve noticed occasionally in Fables, but was more prevalent in his previous fantasy works. He’s done a decent job of overcoming, or perhaps hiding, this in the ongoing series by making both male and female characters by turns nasty, loving, loyal, and depraved. In 1001 Nights, though, there is a troubling rape scene in the Frog Prince short story, which is unnecessarily depicted in the art. The story would have been more powerful, IMO, if the story and the illustration showed this in a more sophisticated, allusive and less graphic manner, as was done in the first Snow White short story in the book. As written and illustrated, it places itself squarely in the realm of the torture porn so prevalent in recent movies like Saw and Hostel. It’s a short part (two or three panels) within a longer, very moving story. But for me, it marred the entire work.
I enjoy Fables the series, and I thought this book was quite good. But my reservations about some of the depictions of women in both the series and 1001 Nights result in a qualified recommendation of both.
Everyone in our family is in some stage of whatever virus is going around. Today, I stayed indoors with 4yo Drake and 21mo Guppy, so we could keep quiet and rest. But whenever I sit still, I look around and see something that needs to be done. I either go do it, which isn’t restful, or I fret that I’m not doing it, which isn’t really restful either. I think the solutions are either to be too sick to notice anything, or to lie in bed with an eye mask. The latter doesn’t seem like a sensible choice, what with two small kids and all.
Oh, how I’ve missed Project Runway. Not enough so I enjoyed the lame, awkward “introducing the new designer” snippets that Bravo has been running. But in a way perfectly captured by the classy Tim Gunn commercial that announced the new season: “Finally.”
Once again, we have fifteen designers competing for a big-ass prize. This season, though, the group of designers are the most talented ever, according to every mention of Season 4 anywhere. And it certainly sounded like it from the designer bios. Many owned their own stores or had done lines before. Also, more are nearer 40 than 20, which is a definite departure from seasons past. These aren’t amateurs, they’re more like semi and actual pros.
Spoilers ahead:
The first challenge was easy compared to what past contestants have had. The designers were given tents full of fabulous fabrics and told simply to make something that showed their individual designing selves.
The claws came out in the creative process, as people scrambled to snatch choice fabrics, and later as they looked around at each others’ work. Assymetrical haircut young diva Christian was one of the bitchiest of the bunch, though his second place finish hints that he’s not to be underestimated, even at the tender age of 21. But the win went to Rami, an Israeli who can work wonders draping silk georgette. Michael Kors did get his jab in, though, with his comment about the shoulder flower looking very MOB, i.e., Mother-of-the-Bride.
The two bottom spots were ably filled. Elisa’s bizarre fabric train was supposed to look like a fountain. Instead, it caused her model to trip; Heidi Klum said it looked like the model was pooping fabric. Simone’s dress had been hastily finished. While she talked a good game about mixing feminine styles and eras, the result was a clash, not a complement.
The lesson for the week was to listen to Tim Gunn. He’d told Elisa to clean up the train, and warned Simone that she had too much finishing to do. If either had heeded his advice, they might not have been called on the carpet.
At last week’s “Adventures in Parenting” class we talked about giving children choices so they feel in control. Drake long ago twigged that a “choice” usually meant two variations on something he didn’t want to do. I offered him zig or zag. He would pick zog.
Yesterday, in a sleep-deprived parental lapse of judgment, I told him he needed to go to the bathroom before we left for preschool. Then I turned that into a choice: go to the bathroom, or stay home from preschool. He dug in his heels, and continued his refusal to use the bathroom for over an hour. He then got angry when I wouldn’t take him to preschool, which was half over, plus 21mo Guppy was then napping.
So Drake and I had a power struggle, which I clearly lost, he missed preschool, and I didn’t get an afternoon break that I desperately needed. The only winner was Guppy, who got an uninterrupted three-hour nap.
Today, I more wisely gave him the choice of going to the bathroom at home, or at preschool, and we made it to school on time.
A few years ago, my husband G. Grod and I saw a commercial for Chex cereal. A woman rhapsodized how her mom had made it at the holidays, and now SHE was the mom, so she made the Chex mix. I can’t remember what the emphasis was–that becoming a mom allowed her the privilege of making the mix, or if making the mix somehow cemented her identity as a mother, but the commercial strongly tied the two together. Chex Mix pretty much equaled motherhood.
So it was with my tongue in my cheek during last week’s homemaking frenzy that I made cereal snack mix for the first time. I used a different brand of cereal (less expensive and not as ethically challenged as Chex), and a recipe from the Dec/Jan 2008 issue of Cook’s Country for an Asian variation with dried ginger and soy sauce. 4yo Drake promptly nicknamed it Snarf Snacks, after something we’d read about in The Fabulous Bouncing Chowder. But he and young Guppy took offense at the wasabi peas, so G. Grod and I have been happily munching it all week.
If my child refuses to eat it, do I still get mom points for having made “Chex” mix?
#75 in my 2007 movie challenge was Noah Baumbach’s Squid and the Whale. I’d avoided watching this. While I heard it was good, I also was rarely in the mood for a depressing divorce movie. But it’s been mentioned so many times recently, since Baumbach has a new film out soon, that I felt it was time to check it out. I’m glad I did. This is a dry, darkly funny and very moving film. The acting is across-the-board outstanding, and the characters complex. It was hard to watch the toll the divorce took on the two young sons without squirming, though. The quirky script and well-chosen music reminded me of Wes Anderson, so I wasn’t surprised to see his name in the credits as a producer.
I’ve been on a home-making tear. Starting Sunday, I weeded our yard and cut down the hostas. I roasted a pumpkin, then toasted the seeds and pureed the flesh. Yesterday I managed to do laundry AND put it away. I made pumpkin chocolate-chip cupcakes with maple cream-cheese frosting* for Drake’s preschool snack today. (He’s getting better at baking: he didn’t sneeze in the batter. I’m getting quicker: I stopped him before licking the frosting utensils at least three times.)
I’m not sure what’s prompted this nesting phase; perhaps it’s the looming of winter. But I’m exhausted. I’m off to make sure those cupcakes turned out well. (Again.)
*Recipe from the Jessica Seinfeld cookbook, Deceptively Delicious that all the moms I know are talking about, and which my kind mother-in-law brought me as a gift when she visited. It’s given me minor notoriety among friends: Gasp! “You HAVE it? Can I SEE it?” I’ve tried a few recipes, like sneaking pumpkin into mac and cheese, or sloppy joes, or cupcakes. She goes too far in making the recipes low fat, though, so she’s sacrificed both flavor and texture in the recipes I’ve tried so far. But it’s a lovely, hardcover, spiral bound book with good photography and clever “talking head” illustrations. The art director should be proud.
#51 in my 2007 book challenge was Marrit Ingman’s Inconsolable: How I Threw my Mental Health out with the Diapers.
To borrow her phrase, reading this book made me wonder if Marrit Ingman had been reading my mail.
A good friend, and post-partum depression survivor, lent it to me in the wake of my own struggle with PPD after the birth of Guppy, now 21 months old. Ingman is smart, funny, and often brutally honest about the often ugly underbelly of new motherhood. From a birth that deviated from plan to a rash-y, colic-y infant, Ingman’s experience was so physically and emotionally exhausting that I can’t imagine anyone going through it and NOT becoming depressed. Shifting hormones, sleep deprivation, and the bewilderment of breastfeeding are just a few of the circumstances that make new motherhood less than idyllic.
Ingman details the exhaustion, the ambivalence, the recurring regrets, the suicidal thoughts, and the waves of anger that were all part of her experience. I empathized, I laughed, and I cringed at various points. The book sometimes felt a little disjointed; it’s more a collection of essays than a linear memoir. But the insights into the struggle, and the importance of surviving, are present throughout.
It is taboo for mothers to confess their anger, their confusion, their frustration, their resentment…Looking back now from a place of relative sanity, I see maternal anger everywhere, bubbling through the veneer of politesse, reaching out from inside the platitudinous language we turn to when we are confounded: “I thought I was going to lose my mind.”
I kept taking the Paxil. I started writing and here I am. I woke up to a rash and a screaming kid this morning at 3:30. It’s more manageable most days. You could say it’s better.
I’d discovered from my own experience socializing with other mothers that we could talk about just about anything other than mental illness. We could eat braised puppy and defecate on each other before the topic of PPD would come up.
You have become the person you sneered at when you were young and single and knew everything. You are That Mother.
“You’re very judgmental, you know,” The Good Therapist had pointed out one time. “Do you realize how critical you are of others? You think you’re smarter than everyone else.”
In the end, she reminds us of something I’ve written about many times. Mothers don’t need judgment, especially from other mothers; we need help. When you feel that snarky comment coming on, ask if there’s anything you can do, instead.
Mothers of the world, we’ve got to have each other’s backs. Without working together, we literally cannot survive. Because we are divided–into “working” and “stay-at-home” parents, into “natural” or “attachment” parents and “mainstream” parents–we remain marginalized as a group. We just haven’t noticed because we’re too busy shooting each other down, trying to glean little nuggets of self-satisfaction from an enterprise that is still considered less significant than paid work
Drake’s Aunt Sydney got him The Muppet Show dvds for his birthday. It has become one of his favorite things to watch in his TV time.
Here are some of Drake’s comments: Kermit lives in the O! No, Mom, it’s FUZZY Bear, not Fozzie! No, Mom, his name is Puppy Dog, not Rolf!
Me (to myself): Why are all the women wearing wigs? Why do all the stars look like they have dentures? Isn’t Connie Stevens a little old to be singing “Teenager in Love”? What made Sandy Duncan get famous? Which eye is her glass one? Who ARE most of these male guests: Charles Aznavour, Bruce Forsyth, Avery Schreiber? Why is this sketch set in a bar, and the star pretending to get drunk?
Perhaps Drake won’t grow up to be a critical cynic like his mom.
This one is so ridiculous that it sounds like the writers of The Daily Show might be moonlighting during their strike. I’m sure they’d have a field day with this one:
Millions of toys recalled; contain ‘date rape’ drug
Read through it all, because many more toy recalls are detailed.
I’m thinking of buying US-made toys this year, how about you? A Toy Garden has a good selection of these.
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert is one of my favorite books I read this year. I recorded her appearance on Oprah. It was mostly Oprah gushing about the book, and an appearance by Richard from Texas, whoEat, Pray, Love was almost completely ignored. I was feeling especially bad about having wasted an hour (and tricked 4yo Drake into watching it with me) when O asked EG for ideas. Gilbert offered these three pieces of advice, not from the book:
1. Begin the morning by asking yourself (and possibly writing in your journal), “What do I really, really, really want?” She was firm about the need for three “really”s.
2. End the day by writing down a short description of the happiest moment of the day.
3. Change your mantra to something positive.
I know it sounds cheesy, but I’ve found that #3 is a big deal. When I was floudering in my post-partum depression I had a discouragingly wide repertoire of bad messages for myself, which included, but are not confined to: I suck at this; I can’t stand this!; I could kill myself; Oh, shoot me now; I hate my life; I’m a moron…
Lather, rinse, repeat.
In April, I attended an outpatient program for my depression, and my mantras have improved dramatically since then. Negative ones still creep in, but I notice them now. Instead, the one getting the most play in my head lately is the chorus from the Disney Cinderella: You can do it. Fortunately it’s not in the squeaky mouse voices.
#74 in my 2007 movie challenge was Johnny To’s Triad Election. I borrowed this from the library after I read the glowing piece on his films at Salon by Stephanie Zacharek, who called it a Hong Kong movie for people who don’t think they like Hong Kong movies.
The 96-minute Asian gangster film was well acted, well shot, well directed, and had a fabulous musical score. But it wasn’t for me. There was a great deal of violence, and it’s hard to follow a subtitled movie when my face is turned away from the screen. And to me it felt like yet another “I tried to get out and they keep pulling me back in!” mob movies. Yet I loved Infernal Affairs, so I can appreciate Hong Kong mob films.
So if well-made Hong Kong action mob movies are your thing, you’ll probably like it. If torture violence bugs you, or if you’ve developed mob-film ennui, skip it.
#50 in my 2007 book challenge was Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. My goal for the year was fifty, and I’m happy I’m going to exceed it. See, it IS possible for parents of small children to read, and to read books of substance!
This is labeled memoir/graphic narrative, since it can hardly be called a graphic novel. This is one of the best books I’ve read this year. I’ve not read her comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For, but friends have and recommend it. Bechdel’s art perfectly reflects her memoir–gentle, sad, measured, careful, and caring. It is both expressive and engaging. Interestingly, it called to my mind the style of Carla Speed McNeil, who writes/illustrated in the very different genre of fantasy.
The fun home of the title is how the family jokingly refers to the family business inherited by her father, a funeral home. Bechdel deftly balances myriad elements–her own memories, childhood journal excerpts (that amazingly manage not to be dull or irritating, but rather deserving of empathy or pity), literary interpretation, humor, and sadness–to tell the story about her family and specifically her father, a complex and intriguing person. It would be easy to read him as a villain if Bechdel didn’t so meticulously make him human and complicated. Further impressing me was that the story jumped back and forth in time, yet was easy to follow. This book is lovely to read both literally and pictorially. It’s a beautiful example of the power of graphic narratives.
It’s November 5:
Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder, treason and plot,
I know of no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Fawkes was a member of a group that tried to blow up Parliament. They didn’t succeed. He was caught and came to a bad end.
There’s a brief Guy Fawkes interlude in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman finale, issue #75, and attributes the doggerel to Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Fawkes is a theme in one of my favorite graphic novels, V for Vendetta, as well as the name for Dumbledore’s phoenix in the Harry Potter series. Fawkes was also possibly the historical antecedent for the word “guy.” More here from Wikipedia.
We had a playdate with a friend of 4yo Drake’s scheduled week before last that got cancelled that day. He was disappointed, but I was secretly relieved.
Oh, canceled playdate
All that housecleaning for naught
Yet I’m glad for peace
Today I made cherry chocolate-chip banana bread with 4yo Drake. Here are some things I tried to teach him:
1. Dip and sweep
2. Pour
3. Whisk
4. Fold
5. Sneeze AWAY from the mixing bowl
6. Lick the spatula AFTER the dough is out
7. To lick a bowl, sweep with a finger, then transfer to mouth. Do not stick head in bowl, which results in dough in hair.
Here is something he taught me:
8. Do not plan to serve boy-helped baked goods to guests, only family.
Sigh.
I think it’s probably best not to know what might have been. I liked Lionel Shriver’s Post-Birthday World, which explored the idea very well. But seeing Rob Thomas’s mock-ups for Veronica Season 4 makes me more sad than filled with geek joy.
(Links from Everybody Loves Saturday Night.)
But hope for the fans continues. DC Comics may pick up the series as a comic book, as Dark Horse has done with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which has been a success.
Today I took 4yo Drake to the theater to see The Sound of Music. I had realistic expectations. He started to cry minutes into the last movie I tried, Ratatouille. He loves music, though, so I a nearby showing would a reasonable gamble. Things started off well, since there was an old-time organ concert of the movie music beforehand. I hadn’t known that the showing was a benefit, though, so there were several long speeches after the music but before the film. Drake began to get antsy, but then the movie began. In the olden days when this movie was made (1965) the credits were at the beginning of the film. The considerable list of names ran on, and Drake asked, “Is the movie over, Mom?” I didn’t think that boded well for the 2 hour 54 minute movie. But when the credits finished and the movie began with the panning shots over the mountains, Drake was enthralled. He stayed mostly still for almost two hours, nodding when I asked if he liked it, and shaking his head no when I asked if he wanted to go. Eventually, though, he said he wanted to go home. This happened at a good break in the movie–right after the kids go to bed at the party.
I can’t remember how long it’s been since I’ve seen the movie. Probably not since I was a kid myself. But the welcome familiarity of the story, music, and lyrics was a comfort, and sharing it with Drake was a joy. I even found my grinchy old self tearing up, incongruously during “Do-Re-Mi.” Drake says he wants to get both the CD and the DVD.
So, to borrow a trope:
Movie tickets: $13
Popcorn with real butter, plus drink: $5
Introducing childhood classic to my music-loving child: incalculable.
