Girl Detective

I am not a careful music listener. Instead, I listen to Cd’s over and over till they build an impression. Since my husband G. Grod got laid off from his job last fall, I have curtailed purchases of Cd’s and have instead been getting them from our library. While the wait for certain popular titles can be long, I have a few Cd’s at any given time, and can keep them for three weeks.

There are several benefits to the library option. I can try before I decide to buy. I have checked out several Cd’s that I am glad I didn’t spend money on, and a few that confirmed my desire to track them down. The downside to my listening plan is that pop music, which is engineered to be more immediately like-able, floats to the top of my list faster than do other, more carefully crafted Cd’s. A concentrated three-week span of listening, though, is usually enough for non-poppy music to make a favorable impression. Often, three weeks is sufficient to return something I like and not feel I need to own it. Here is a list of some of the recent things that have cycled through, and what impressions they left.

No impression after multiple listens:

Patty Griffin, 1000 Kisses and Impossible Dream
My Morning Jacket, At Dawn–like Neil Young playing in the room next door
Jayhawks, Tomorrow the Green Grass

Grew on me, but I don’t need to own

Interpol, Turn on the Bright Lights
Bright Eyes, Letting off the Happiness–uneven
Jeff Buckley, Sketches for my Sweetheart the Drunk

Just don’t get

Jeff Buckley, Mystery White Boy, Live–so much yowling
Jeff Buckley, Grace–less, but still too much, yowling

Not as good as their last one

Thrills, Let’s Bottle Bohemia

Fun

O.C. Mixes 1 and 2
For the Kids 1
Kings of Leon, Youth and Young Manhood
Bright Eyes, Lifted

Substantively good

Nick Drake, Five Leaves Left–Dreamy
Low, Great Destroyer
Madeleine Peyroux, Careless Love

Kind readers, my husband G. Grod says that comments work, so please give it a shot. Email me if things don’t work. I’m afraid we may have lost those comments that were made while they were broken. Many apologies.

So far, I’m on track to meet my 50-book challenge for 2005. Both of these were recommendations culled from some of the litblogs I read.
24. When the Messenger is Hot by Elizabeth Crane. Stories featuring women who are in recovery, have relationship troubles, and/or have dead/dying opera-singing mothers. Funny and well-written, I especially liked “Return to the Depot!” and “Intervention,” about a woman whose friends intervene to let her know that she’s NOT an alcoholic. I found Crane’s forays into second-person narration less successful than the rest, but not without merit.

25. Stop that Girl by Elizabeth McKenzie stopped being good when the main character in the interconnected stories, Ann Ransom, stopped being a girl. The stories from her childhood were funny and intriguing. Once she got to college, though, I found them boring and pathetic. Perhaps it is the author’s intent to show how smart, sassy heroines get swallowed up into boring lives, but I thought the last few stories took away from the charm of the earlier ones.

I cleaned out my current email inbox yesterday and today, from over 80 messages down to less than 10. Unfortunately, I’ve still got 35 messages in my former email program from April of ‘03 to spring of ‘05. I read email in the morning, when I snatch a few moments here and there, or at night, when I’m tired and want to watch TV or read my book. Email is reading and writing. These require an awake brain, so I’m better mid-day than I am at either end. I have to continually remind myself of an acronym for handling email I learned at my former job, DRAFS:

D: Delete. Do you really need to keep this info?
R: Reply, then delete.
A: Act. Get up and do something, like transfer the information somewhere else, or call someone.
F: Forward. Be sparing and thoughtful. If it sounds like an urban myth, check www.snopes.com first.
S: Save information that want to refer to later but don’t need to do anything about now.

Dear kind readers, the comment feature is not working. Ironically, this coincides with G. Grod’s return to the rat race, so it may not be till tonight that they get fixed. Many apologies for the inconvenience, and I promise, we will work to get your comments through as quickly as possible!

More from my 50 movie challenge for 2005. My friend Becca wondered if I pick out what I watch/read in advance. Nope. I make it up as I go along. Becca lent me movie #s 18 and 20, which were good antidotes to #17.

16. Second Sight 2: Hide and Seek. 2003. Eh.

17. About Schmidt. 2002. Directed by Alexander Payne. Overly long. Unpleasant. Not that funny. I much preferred Sideways.

18. The Big Lebowski. 1998. Directed by Joel Coen. Very funny. The Dude is an amiable, like-able loser, unlike Schmidt. Favorite quotes: “It really tied the room together” and “Nice marmot.”

19. The Interpreter. 2005. Directed by Sydney Pollack. Sean Penn is stunning. A good, solid thriller. They were wishy washy about the romantic tension and should have left it out entirely.

20. Army of Darkness. 1993. Directed by Sam Raimi. I liked this much better than I remember liking it when I watched it before. Is it the director’s cut? Is it that I didn’t watch Evil Dead 1 & 2 right before it? In any case, good, silly, B-movie fun.

21. Laurel Canyon. 2003. Directed by Lisa Cholodenko. Not a good movie, but a great performance by Frances McDormand. How do you know that Kate Beckinsale has fake tits? Her bra never comes off. Not during sex with her boyfriend, not in the pool or in bed for a three way. McDormand is a good actress, and her beauty is real, interesting and complex. Beckinsale looks and acts like a Barbie doll.

22. The Iron Giant. 1999. Directed by Brad Bird. I love this film. Great story, great 1950’s look, great voice casting.

I found links to Kiernan Ryan’s Guardian article on Shakespeare both at Mental Multivitamin and at Arts & Letters Daily. I like that Ryan challenges the common theory for Shakespeare’s continued popularity.

The popular consensus is that his drama has defied obsolescence and triumphed in translation all over the globe because it expresses the timeless truths of the universal human condition. It’s a view that has secured powerful advocates, from Samuel Johnson in the 18th century to Harold Bloom in the 21st. But it’s a view whose platitudinous piety I’ve never found credible, not least because it’s been used so often to buttress the status quo.

Ryan’s conclusion, though, proved less compelling to me than the one he purported to denounce.

Shakespeare’s drama still thrills us because it allows us to see his world from the standpoint of a world that men and women are still struggling to create. Shakespeare’s gift to our time is an extraordinary one: the power to view the past that shaped the present as if we were already citizens of centuries to come.

I came to Shakespeare via Kenneth Branagh’s film adaptation of Henry V. “I can understand this,” I thought exultantly, as I sat in the theater and waited to find out who won the battle, my enjoyment of the movie made more powerful by my spotty knowledge of history. Since then, I have read several of the plays, seen them performed on film or in the theater and read other books and seen other films that are homages to Shakespeare’s works. I enjoy Shakespeare, and I don’t think it has to do with the universality of the stories, or with what Ryan said.

For me, it’s the language. My brain has to work just a bit harder to process it. Once I have done, I feel I’ve had the mental equivalent of a good workout and a hearty meal. The language draws me in, then the stories keep me engaged.

Recently, a movie meme made the rounds. I ignored it because I am terrible at quoting movies. My ease at coming up with Shakespeare quotes, though, supports my theory on why I like Shakespeare.

Why do you like Shakespeare? The language, the stories, a combination? I propose a Shakespeare variation on the movie meme. If it goes ’round, perhaps I’ll see if I’m the only one who disagrees with Ryan. If you have a blog, post a link to your entry in the comments. If you don’t have a blog, answer in the comments.

1. Name the first five lines of Shakespeare that come into your head. (Don’t cheat–write the first five that you think of, then check for accuracy later.)

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers
The quality of mercy is not strained
All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players
Lead on, MacDuff (Oops, it’s actually Lay On, MacDuff)
To thine own self be true

2. The last Shakespeare play you went to see on stage.

Antony and Cleopatra

3. The last Shakespeare film homage or adaptation you watched at home or at the movies.

Titus (at home)

4. What Shakespeare homage/adaptation/plays are on your to be read/to be seen list?

Looking for Richard on Tivo
Richard II on DVD
Hamlet (read the play and watch the Branagh DVD, once I finish Don Quixote)
Gertrude and Claudius, by John Updike

5. Name a favorite Shakespeare-inspired work.

Issue #75 of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. It was a strong ending to a strong series. Good endings are hard to do. Gaiman pulled it off brilliantly. Close second, The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey.

6. Why do you think Shakespeare’s plays are still popular?

My toddler Drake likes to hear the same books over and over. My husband G. Grod and I have “disappeared” a few of Drake’s more tedious choices. Fortunately, most of Drake’s favorite books have passages I enjoy with each reading.

From Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne.

Then, suddenly, [Pooh] was dreaming. He was at the East Pole, and it was a very cold pole with the coldest sort of snow and ice all over it. He had found a beehive to sleep in, but there wasn’t room for his legs, so he had left them outside. And Wild Woozles, such as inhabit the East Pole, came and nibbled all the fur off his legs to make nests for their Young. And the more they nibbled, the colder his legs got, until suddenly he woke up with an Ow!–and there he was, sitting in his chair with his feet in the water and water all round him!

From Best Friends for Frances by Russell Hoban.

When Frances got to Albert’s house, he was just coming out, and he was carrying a large, heavy-looking brown paper bag.
“Let’s play baseball,” said Frances.
“I can’t,” said Albert. “Today is my wandering day.”
“Where do you wander?” said Frances.
“I don’t know,” said Albert. “I just go around until I get hungry and then I eat my lunch.”
“That looks like a big lunch,” said Frances.
“It’s nothing much,” said Albert. “Four or five sandwiches and some apples and bananas and two packages of cupcakes and a quart of chocolate milk.”
“Can I wander with you?” asked Frances.
“I only have one lunch,” said Albert…”I think I better go by myself. The things I do on my wandering days aren’t things you can do.”
“Like what?” said Frances.
“Catching snakes,” said Albert. “Throwing stones at telephone poles. A little frog work maybe. Walking on fences. Whistling with grass blades. Looking for crow feathers.”

From Olivia Saves the Circus by Ian Falconer.

“Was that true?” Olivia’s teacher asks.
“Pretty true,” says Olivia.
“All true?”
“Pretty all true.”
“Are you sure, Olivia?”
“To the best of my recollection.”

My husband G. Grod suggested that I may be trying to do too much, i.e., read 50ish pages of Don Quixote every day, read another book, write this blog, read other blogs, go to yoga class a few times a week, work on my novel, read excerpts of other people’s novels for my writing group. And, oh yeah, take care of my small child. Unsurprisingly, I’m dropping some balls here and there. Last week, the blog ball got dropped. I apologize for the lack of notice for a post-free week.

I took a break from the weblog to focus on other writing. As has happened before, all my writing slowed. Progress on manuscript #1 was painfully slow. I dug out manuscript #2 to change things up. Things didn’t improve, so I’m back to the blog in the hope it will kick my writing and editing back into high gear.