Girl Detective

This month’s selection for one of my book groups, The Yamas and Niyamas,: Exploring Yoga’s Ethical Practice by Deborah Adele, is a good book for those who have taken yoga class and want to learn more about the philosophy. Yoga classes, in which asanas, or poses, are practiced, is the third of eight paths of yoga. The Yamas and Niyamas are the first two. Yamas is Sanskrit for “restraints,” which include nonviolence, truthfulness, nonstealing, nonexcess, and nonpossessiveness. Niyamas mean “observances” and include, purity, contentment, self-discipline, self-study and surrender.

Adele, an experienced yoga teacher and life coach, gives each of the Yamas and Niyamas their own chapter, which includes both real-life stories and yogic quotes and adages. The chapters are accessible and engaging. At the end of each chapter, Adele suggests a focus of practice, and encourages journaling for four weeks on four different aspects of each. In this way, she far exceeds the purview of most self-help books, which are easy to forget once the cover is closed. Here, patient, persistent practice is advised, just as in a yoga class.

Those who practice other religions will find the content consistent with other philosophies. I found the the Yamas and Niyamas, their meanings and practices, corresponded closely to those of the Ten Commandments, e.g., nonviolence = do not murder, truthfulness = do not bear false witness, nonstealing = do not steal, and more. The Commandments also, like the Yamas and Niyamas, are split in half, but in the opposite order of the Yamas and Niyamas. The first five commandments focus on religious practice (though there’s some dispute over #5, honor they father and mother), while the final five focus on life conduct, and are phrased similarly to the Yamas “non” with the negative “do not.”

I followed the journaling advice, and found it helpful and not difficult. This is a good book for clearing the mind and focusing, and for those wanting to take their yoga practice to the next level.

again. My husband G. Grod didn’t get to see The Hurt Locker, so when Barnes and Noble sent us an email saying that Oscar winners were 40% off, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. We ordered Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds and Up. Watching Hurt Locker a second time is interesting, as I could observe HOW the director sustained tension without feeling it so acutely as I did watching the first time. I think this is a superbly crafted movie that takes a tight focus on one character, yet has far-reaching implications. There’s no way I can walk away from watching it and think, well, that’s over. It lingers, and makes me feel uncomfortable, in the way that really good fiction does.

This is me, now, under deadline:

I finished one article yesterday, and have one to go. Reading, laundry, email, blogging are all on back burners.

I’m off to read and write about eggs. As M, who blogs at Mental Multivitamin writes, see you on the other side. (Animation also courtesy of M.)

I borrowed Hidden from the library when it was mentioned by A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips on At the Movies. They agreed it was a superior film to The White Ribbon, director Michael Haneke’s most recent film, an Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Film. Roger Ebert recently added Hidden to his list of Great Movies, so it moved to the top of my Must See list.

Daniel Auteuil is Georges, the host of a literary talk show. He’s married to Anne (Juliet Binoche) and has a twelve year old son, Pierrot. He receives anonymous videotapes showing surveillance of his home, and soon a series of violent childlike drawings. Who is sending them, why, and do they mean harm to Georges and his family? As the tension builds, it creates a widening gulf between the couple. Several times the director seems to be giving the viewers some part of answers, only to retract or call them into question later. In the end, the film is less about who sent the tapes than about how Georges falls apart while trying to hold things together. It’s also about the expectations viewers have from a film like this, and what our expectations say about what we want.

This is a film that deliberately frustrates and confuses the audience, hailed by many critics as great, but by others as a nasty mind game perpetrated on the audience by the director. There is a scene of brief, graphic violence that happens so quickly it’s probably not possible to cover your eyes from. The scene is meant to shock, and it does. Haneke is proud of his ambiguous film. He has said that he wanted a film that viewers would walk about and remember, not dismiss once their questions were answered.

With me, at least, he succeeded. I spent a good deal of time reading material on the movie after I saw it to better understand it. I do, or at least I think I do. Roger Ebert’s Great Movies entry and the BFI’s Sight and Sound article on it were the most comprehensive and helpful to me. And while I can’t say I enjoyed the film, I do admire it and appreciate its complexity. It’s not many films that prompt me to further study and investigation as this one did.

Kathryn Stockett’s The Help is one of those word-of-mouth bestsellers, that women friends recommend to their friends, then all the book groups are reading it, when it’s still in hardcover, no less. Doing so well, in fact, that the publisher is delaying the paperback. Other books that have had similar trajectories are Sarah Gruen’s Water for Elephants, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato-Peel Pie Society (which I quite enjoyed).

Don’t consult the cover if you want to know what it’s about; for that, see the UK version, deemed too controversial for American audiences. Set in Jackson, Mississippi during the early 60’s, chapters alternate first-person point of view between two domestic servants of white families, Aibileen and Minnie, and Skeeter, a white-woman friend of their employers. Reading this book made me profoundly uncomfortable. Not only does Stockett, a white woman raised by a domestic in the South, write from the first person, but she chooses to write in dialect for the black characters, but not for the white ones.

Mae Mobley was born on a early Sunday morning in August, 1960. A church baby we like to call it. Taking care a white babies, that’s what I do, along with all the cooking and the cleaning. I done raised seventeen kids in my lifetime. I know how to get them babies to sleep, stop crying, and go in the toilet bowl before they mamas even get out a bed in the morning.

Stockett faces the same dilemma as her fictional counterpart, Skeeter, who interviews the maids in her town to detail the many injustices and cruelties of institutional racism in a southern US city. Stockett’s intention is good; she’s trying to conscientiously give voice to those who didn’t have it, and at the same time educate readers on the countless horrifying particulars of life during the time of Jim Crow laws. Her book is good. It’s a readable tale of a group of women who love and support one another, and who fight for justice in a violent and vicious environment.

In the end, though, there were few, if any, surprises for me. The plots unfolded predictably. Several of the mysteries, like Minnie’s “Terrible Awful,” the fate of Skeeter’s caregiver Constantine, and the secret of Minnie’s new boss, Miss Celia, were easy to guess, and were strung out so long they lost their power to shock, as they were meant to. Most of the characters were caricatures of ones I’ve seen too many times. Aibileen is the loving mammy. Minnie is the sassy maid. Her husband is the drunk wife beater. Miss Celia is the white-trash hottie who married up and whom all the other women envy. Skeeter is the conscience of the town. Her childhood friend, Hilly, is the villain.

Stockett does a decent job of making her white characters, like Hilly and Aibileen’s boss, Elizabeth, complex. Hilly is racist, yet she loves her children. Elizabeth neglects her daughter, yet lives in fear of Hilly and is in turn neglected by her husband. But the black characters for the most part are two-dimensional–all good, all hard working, all persecuted by their white employers.

I wish Stockett would have constructed her book and conveyed the truths within in a way that didn’t trespass so blatantly on the lesser social status of her subjects by trying to speak in their voices. In the book, Skeeter edits the maids’ stories, she doesn’t write them. Perhaps if the entire book had been in third person, or if the maids’ sections had been, that might have troubled me less. Especially since Stockett chose to put one central chapter in the third person, without dialect, and it worked well.

This is a complicated book to talk about. It’s a good story, capably written, with many sympathetic characters. But it’s also manipulative, simplistic, and perhaps enacts vestiges of the racism the author purports to expose. I know many people loved it, but I definitely didn’t. I doubt I’d even recommend it.

See this discussion at Amazon for more from people who have problems with this book.

4yo Guppy is showing ever-increasing independence. At 3, when he began using the bathroom, he demanded company. Now, he asks for privacy. In his late 3s, he maintained he needed help getting dressed. Instead, I’d ask him if he wanted help, and began offering incentives (like watching this fabulously entertaining OK Go Rube Goldberg contraption video this morning) for him to get dressed on his own. He dressed himself, very quickly.

This morning, I was working on my computer, and heard him banging about in the kitchen. Bags rustled, chairs were moved, and I decided to just let him be. Several minutes later, smelling strongly of jam, he came out to tell me he’d made himself a snack.

What was it, I asked.

Toast! he crowed.

You actually toasted it, or did you have bread? I said, wanting to be precise. (Guppy has had trouble with the difference between bread and toast. Often, when 3, he would ask for toast, then throw a fit when I gave it to him. “But I didn’t want it toasted!” he’d wail.)

Yep, he said, with his characteristic decisive nod.

Later in the morning he crawled into my lap and I read to him. Right now, he’s (mostly) at a lovely age and stage, where he’s still small, snuggly and cute, yet able to do things for himself and not quite so insanely autocratic as he was not too long ago. I’m writing this down to remember it, now and later.

Was District 9 ever an Oscar best-picture contender? Probably not. But it’s a solid little sci-fi film, which evokes tension and fear in spite of its low-budget effects. They aren’t bad, but they’d certainly not in the same league as Star Trek’s or Avatar’s. Speaking of that latter blockbuster, NPR writer Linda Holmes wrote that District 9 did a better job telling a nuanced, provocative story about alien invasion and fear of the other than did Avatar.

District 9 advances the thesis — graphically and imaginatively, if with comparatively cheap-looking visuals — that violent mistreatment of entire populations is per se immoral. And it advances this idea without suggesting that the targeted population should prove itself first — prove that it is a superior society, better in tune with nature, less violent, prettier.

And I agree. Avatar looked great, but had a tired story about noble savages and greedy human invaders. Evocatively set in South Africa, District 9 turns that premise on its head. Aliens come to Earth, but they’re sick and starving, not invading.

In his first role ever, Sharlto Copley is tremendous as the bureaucrat in charge of relocating the aliens. He’s like Michael Scott from The Office, until things go horribly wrong. This film reminded me (pleasantly) of a grand story from Torchwood or Doctor Who, and of the low-budget high-thrill 28 Days.

Last year’s National Book Award for fiction winner, and one of the first “players” in this year’s Morning News Tournament of Books, Collum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin pivots around Phillip Petit’s tightrope walk between the Twin Towers in August 1974.

Those who saw him hushed. On Church Street. Liberty. Cortlandt. West Street. Fulton. Vesey. It was a silence that heard itself, awful and beautiful. Some thought at first that it must have been a trick of the light, something to do with the weather, an accident of shadowfall. Others figured it might be the perfect city joke–stand around and point upward, until people gathered, tilted their heads, nodded, affirmed , until all were staring upward at nothing at all, like waiting for the end of a Lenny Bruce gag. But the longer they watched, the surer they were. He stood at the very edge of the building, shaped dark against the gray of the morning. A window washer maybe. Or a construction worker. Or a jumper.

Up there, at the height of a hundred and ten stories, utterly still, a dark toy against the cloudy sky.

The novel is constructed of chapters from different characters’ points of view, all related somehow to Petit’s walk and ultimately all related to one another. There’s a struggling priest advocating for the prostitutes in his neighborhood, his brother who recently emigrated from Ireland, mothers of boys killed in Vietnam, computer hackers, failed artists, and more. It builds tension as the stories begin and connect to the event, and becomes taut in the middle as they all come together. The last few chapters lost momentum for me, as they played out stories I thought would happen anyway. But the overall novel, fictionalized from an historic event, crowded with memorable, relate-able characters described in prose so skilled I hardly noticed how good it was, is a good read, and a very good book.

For more on Petit’s walk, see the Oscar-nominated Man on Wire, or read the Caldecott-winning children’s book The Man Who Walked Between the Towers.

Anvil the Canadian metal band was an inspiration for young metalheads who went on to bands like Guns N Roses, Antrax, and Metallica. Yet Anvil never made the big time. This documentary, Anvil: The Story of Anvil, follows the band, led by lead singer Lips and drummer Robb Reiner, both now in their 50s, as they continue to pursue their dream of heavy metal stardom.

Directed by a former fan, this is a surprisingly sweet homage to this little-known band, and the movie pays tribute to its fictional fore-runner, director Rob (no extra b) Reiner’s classic, This is Spinal Tap. It also reminded me more than a little of last year’s The Wrestler, though it’s much more affectionate and hopeful. Quite charming, actually.

TV critic Alan Sepinwall, via Mo Ryan of the ChiTrib, confirms that HBO has given the greenlight to a series based on George R.R. Martin’s fantasy novel A Game of Thrones.

The cast includes some impressive names, like Mark Addy of Shaun of the Dead, Jennifer Ehle of Pride and Prejudice, and Lena Headey of 300 and the Terminator tv series, but I was most surprised and delighted to see that David Benioff, whose City of Thieves I just finished and loved, is the Exec Producer and screenwriter.

A Game of Thrones was recommended to me in 1997 by two of my co-worker friends at a comic shop in Bryn Mawr, PA. I devoured it and passed it on to my then-boyfriend G. Grod, who also devoured it. We liked the 2nd book, but were disappointed that the third wasn’t the conclusion, and I never made it through. I wished for far less description of what people were wearing (sumptuous velvets embroidered with sigils) and what people were eating (savory meat in delicious sauce, and no vegetables; how did these people not get scurvy?) and more of the story and characters. I’ve been thinking for a while I’d like to revisit the series if Martin ever finishes the fifth book, so I don’t end up a victim of waaaant! because of the series’ IWantToReadItosity like Jo Walton at Tor.com. Now I’ve got even more incentive.

Big Machine by Victor LaValle is one of those sleeper contenders in The Morning News 2010 Tournament of Books. Good reviews, but very few copies in my library system, and a huge queue. Lured with a coupon, I bought a copy. And don’t regret it one jot.

Don’t look for dignity in public bathrooms. The most you’ll find is privacy and sticky floors. But when my boss gave me the glossy envelope, the bathroom was the first place I ran. What can I say? Lurking in toilets was my job.

Ricky Ray is a bus-station janitor in upstate New York when he receives an envelope that moves his life in a new direction. He’s been a junkie, a thief, even part of a cult, but none of these have prepared him for the strangeness he’s about to encounter when he’s invited to a place called The Washburn Library.

The details of this book are so lovely and strange I don’t want to spoil them. This is a surprising book that includes elements of horror, spirituality, mystery, even a kind of coming-of-age. The central characters are all black, and the story’s blend of mystical realism reminded me, in a good way, of Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist. It is by turns funny, tragic, horrifying, and wondrous. Throughout, though, it made me want to turn its pages. When I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it, or wanting to get back to reading it. This book, like Lowboy, is one I probably wouldn’t have discovered or sought out on my own, if not for the ToB. But I’m very glad to have made its acquaintance.

Duplicity has Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, the director of Michael Clayton, and a heist-type caper. Yet it doesn’t quite come together; it’s not nearly as fun, sexy, cool, or clever as it thinks it is. I wish I could have that time back. I had better things to do with it. Like laundry.

I, Girl Detective, rested, and let other people do the cooking.

Friday night, supper at Cheeky Monkey. I greatly enjoyed the muffuletta sandwich and grits with bacon. Until they had their Reflux Revenge.

Saturday morning, breakfast at Red Stag. Crab cake, 2 poached eggs, tarragon aioli and mixed greens.

Still full at lunchtime.

Saturday supper, Solera, with JP Samuelson and 2 awesome grill guys whipping up the tapas: Chorizo Stuffed Dates with Smoked Bacon; Octopus Ceviche with Citrus, Pepper and Cumin; Tempura Squash with Pumpkin Seed Romesco; Grilled Short Ribs with Sunchokes and Baby Carrot; Roasted Beets with Duck, Walnuts and Palhais; Sherry Glazed Pork Belly with Morcilla and Lentils; Scallops ‘a la Plancha’ with Serrano Ham and Saffron; Grilled Asparagus with Lomo and Mahon; Braised Rabbit and Artichokes with Lemon and Egg. And that’s not all, oh no, that’s not all! While the rabbit was rich enough to be dessert, I couldn’t forego the ice cream trio: coffee, butterscotch and tangy cream cheese.

Apres supper, a Sprite at Mayslack’s while listening to Guns N Roses loud, louder and loudest, in a failed attempt to meet up with friends.

Sunday morning, breakfast in bed. The boys finally got the memo! For the first time on a birthday or Mother’s Day, 4yo Guppy and 6yo Drake weren’t sick, didn’t wake in the night, didn’t wake before I did! They brought in home made cards, then went to help G. Grod fix me breakfast in bed, though they were very confused as to why I would want such a thing. (To read more of my book, of course.)

Sunday afternoon. A global lunch at Midtown Global Market. G had a ham and cheese croissant, the boys had corn dogs, and I had a huarachazo. Then we picked up the chocolate-orange cake that Salty Tart chef Michelle Gayer and I had brainstormed on and which she brought into being. It’s coming to room temperature now, and should be perfect after a simple supper tonight. For which I _might_ wash some lettuce.

And did I mention the lovely well wishes and cool prezzies? I’ve had scores of emails, in the face of which it’s impossible not to feel loved and appreciated. A lime-green pair of high-heeled sandals with matching tank from sister Sydney, the bundt pan I’VE WANTED FOR FOREVER and the Lou Barlow cd I’ve wanted since Duff noted it was one of her faves of ‘05 from my sister Ruthie, an awesome Minnesota dish towel from my friend The Hoff, an electric kettle (since I’ve ruined countless stovetop ones), a mini Bodum, and a CD from G that he really was excited about. A copy of Baked of my own from G’s grandma. Plus lingering happy memories and waves of wellness from the yoga retreat my mother-in-law sent me on.

Thus far, a tremendous day. Last year was rather difficult. This year will be better. I’m feeling fortified for it.

When I looked through Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, one of the first recipes to draw me in was for their Sweet and Salty Chocolate Cake. I asked my husband G. Grod if he’d like it for his birthday. (OK, I may have said, “This is the cake I’m making for your birthday, OK?”) He graciously humored me, and the plan was on.

I began on Sunday morning; the morning and I were both bright and full of promise. First were the three cake layers:

That took about an hour and a half to make and bake. I took a break for lunch and nap, then returned to the fray once they’d cooled.

Next step was the salted caramel filling for the biannual airing of my candy thermometer, finished around 4pm:

Immediately after, a SECOND batch of caramel, which I added to a chocolate ganache frosting (1 pound of dark chocolate, 1 pound of butter, 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream…) around 5 pm and whipped into frosting on my trusty Kitchenaid:

Next was cake assembly. On my cake stand (a wedding gift from friend LAP) I topped a cake layer with the salted caramel, left it to sink in, then added a layer of frosting, a sprinkle of fleur de sel, another cake layer, another dousing of caramel:

and lather rinse, repeat. Once assembled, I frosted with a crumb coat, refrigerated and went to town with the rest of the frosting, and topped with a final sprinkle of fleur de sel, finishing about 6 p.m.:

Served, it was a little squashed, so hardly the picture-perfect slice from the book, but it was nonetheless a striking specimen:

And, if I do say so, pretty tasty. Seven hours from start to finish, but worth it for a special event.

I’m trying to cram in as many of The Morning News Tournament of Books contenders as I can before it begins on 3/8, but David Benioff’s City of Thieves jumped the queue by coming into the library about a month ahead of when I needed it for next month’s Books and Bars discussion. While I’m now woefully behind on my ToB OCD (brackets!), I don’t begrudge City of Thieves. It was fabulous.

There are two beginnings. One is by the author, named David who is a screenwriter of superhero mutant movies in Hollywood. He’s asked to write something autobiographical, and instead wants to know what happened to his grandfather during WWII.

David begins:

My grandfather, the knife fighter, killed two Germans before he was eighteen.

And continues in Chapter One with Lev, the grandfather’s story:

You have never been so hungry; you have never been so cold. When we slept, if we slept, we dreamed of the feasts we had carelessly eaten seven months earlier–all that buttered bread, the potato dumplings, the sausages–eaten with disregard, swallowing without tasting, leaving great crumbs on our plates, scraps of fat. In June of 1941, before the Germans came, we thought we were poor. But June seemed like paradise by winter.

Lev is 17 during the siege of Leningrad. His mother and sister have left the city. His father, a poet, was taken by secret police and never returned. With his friends, he watches the night skies for German planes; one evening he sees a paratrooper. What follows leads to his arrest and imminent execution. In a bizarre circumstance, he and another young man, Kolya, are spared and put on a singular mission: find a dozen eggs for the wedding cake of a secret police colonel’s daughter. As Lev and Kolya’s adventure spins out, it becomes many things: a Nazi story, horror tale, buddy journey, tragedy, even romance. Once it gets to a bitter twist of a denouement, City of Thieves has taken on the trappings of a folk story. This is a grand tale, well written and peopled with characters I hope will linger with me. There are many books I like, and admire. This one, I flat-out loved.

I saw Avatar in regular 3D rather than schlepping to an IMAX 360, or paying extra to see it in IMAX on a flat screen, which friends warned was a waste of the upcharge. I went in expecting a trite story, and Cameron didn’t disappoint. This is one of the oldest, most-told tales ever:

Dumb young guy comes into strange situation, and is educated by hot, ass-kicking chick. (Matrix) He doesn’t speak her language, but she’s a princess, and he wins her though she was promised to another. (Pocahontas, and the guy even has the same initials as John Smith.) He’s sent in as a spy, but switches allegiances when he recognizes the nobility of the “savages” and organizes them to fight back.

One of my favorite movie reviews ever was of Moulin Rouge, in which the critic said something like, if the story is cake then it’s stale as can be, but, oh, how divine is the frosting! The same holds true, here. Even Cameron has made some of this movie before, like Giovanni Ribisi in the corporate tool role that Paul Reiser played in Aliens. The story is stale, but Cameron’s visuals and the 3D are fresh and exciting. Initially I was sitting in the center of the theater till the rude people behind me wouldn’t stop talking. I moved closer to the screen, and the 3D effect and immersion was intensified. The 2 hours and 40 minutes passed quickly. There was a long scene near the end with Sigourney Weaver that should have been cut, but the rest didn’t feel bloated. Worthington, with his Russell Crowe-ish hidden-Aussie accented growl, is compelling as the messiah figure, and Zoe Saldana makes a terrific warrior princess.

Go, expecting a bad movie that looks good. But go, because it won’t be nearly as cool if you’re not in the theater seeing it in 3D.

From the Guardian, a collection of Top Ten lists by authors on writing, inspired by Elmore Leonard’s soon-to-be published 10 Rules of Writing. There’s a lot of the usual: trust your instinct, read more, write consistently, blah, blah, blah.

But there are also some gems, such as:

Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can’t sharpen it on the plane, because you can’t take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils. (Margaret Atwood)

Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst. (Joyce Carol Oates)

Work on a computer that is disconnected from the ­internet. (Zadie Smith)

I found this linked to at Lit Life, The Morning News, and Arts & Letters Daily.

Brighton Rock was one of the final entries in Take Up Productions’ excellent Brit Noir series. Based on a Graham Greene novel, it’s about a small group of gangsters in vacation destination Brighton, England. The gang is led by cold-eyed, smooth-faced Pinkie, played chillingly by Richard Attenborough, whose age belies his capacity for cruelty. (And who bore a distracting resemblance to my brother-in-law.) When he kills a man, two women remain who know more than he’d like. One is innocent girl Rose, a waitress. The other is sharp-voiced and initially boozy Ida, who the dead man had tried to use an an escape. She doesn’t believe he died of a heart attack, as the police report states, so she begins to investigate, which leads her to Rose:

Ida: Now listen, dear. I’m human, I’ve loved a boy or two in my time. It’s natural, like breathin’. Not one of them’s worth it, let alone this fellow you’ve got hold of.

This was an exciting twist on the more classically American noir. While some broad strokes are the same, I enjoyed puzzling out a few of the particulars. Attenborough is chilling, and the ending tense as he tries to drag Rose down a path she refuses to see coming. The ending is fittingly ironic. Some see it as happy. While it’s less dark than the one IMDB says was intended, there’s more bitterness than hope. Lesser known than The Third Man, Brighton Rock is very good and worth seeking out, especially as a remake is due later this year.

I was in the mood for a good romantic comedy, and It’s Complicated at the cheap theater with real-butter popcorn fit the bill. Meryl Streep has been divorced from Alec Baldwin for 10 years after being married for 20. They have 3 grown kids, and he has a lissome trophy wife and her strange 5yo son. Streep is a very successful bakery owner, and has a really swank home that she’s inexplicably getting an addition for, so she can build the kitchen of her dreams. (The current kitchen is more than enough for most people’s dreams.) Steve Martin, admirably toned down, plays her recently divorced architect and tentative love interest.

The complications of the title occur when Streep and Baldwin get drunk and have a one-night stand while attending their son’s graduation. He’s unhappy in his marriage, so he thinks it’s great. She’s enjoying herself, but is more hesitant, especially as she gets to know the architect.

Streep is charming, Baldwin is hilarious, and John Krasinski is both as their future son-in-law. I found Martin immensely likable, which I almost never do. The theater where I saw it was packed on a Saturday night, and I missed many of the lines because of all the laughter. At the end, the audience burst into spontaneous applause. By no means perfect, it was enjoyable and a crowd pleaser. I’ll definitely rent it when it comes out on DVD. And kudos for casting Baldwin, 9 years Streep’s junior, as her love interest! How often does that happen?

Volume 13 of the comic-book series Fables, The Great Fables Crossover, is a welcome respite from the near-unrelenting darkness and violence of the last few volumes. This compilation includes issues from Fables, Jack of Fables, and The Literals miniseries.

How thoroughly you enjoy this book may depend on how well you like the character of Jack. You know, Jack: Frost, Horner, the Giant Killer, Be-Nimble, and the Bean Stalk, etc. I stopped reading the Jack of Fables series when I found him more insufferable than funny. And while he has some good bits in this volume, especially his meta-textual intos and outros, anytime he was on page I couldn’t wait for him to get off.

More entertaining, I thought, was learning more about The Literals, characters like Gary the Pathetic Fallacy, Mr. Revise who can edit stories permanently (ever heard of the four little pigs? He’s why not.), and the Page sisters, who are kick-ass librarians with magic powers.

The villain this time is not the bad guy from The Dark Ages. Apparently he’s taking a back seat during this romp. No less evil, though, is Kevin Thorn, who is able to write worlds in and out of existence. He’s struggling for the words to unmake the world, which has gone on so long without his intervention that he’s appalled by how things have turned out: The Big Bad Wolf is in human form, married to Snow White, and a father? Gepetto became so much more than a puppet maker? As he struggles against his twin Writer’s Block, the Fables and Literals race to eliminate Kevin before he does the same to them.

Pink elephants! Theocratic badgers! Girls with glasses and really big guns! Babe the blue ox, insane and funny! Plus a little girl who’s not as sweet as she looks. This is a fun, clever diversion, too heavy on Jack, but a nice break until we get back to the good and grim stuff, which I’m sure will happen soon.