Veronica Mars premiers tonight at 9 Eastern, 8 Central. It was my favorite show from last season, and I really hope they don’t mess it up. Sassy girl detective fighting the high school status quo, with cute boys. Hmm. Wonder why I like it.
Shopping with Drake is a challenge. He is easily bored, averse to sitting still, shrill in his displeasure, and can easily defeat the strap in shopping carts. One time he even fell backward over the toddler seat into the cart. But we went to our local food coop yesterday and had NO screaming. Here’s how I did it:
String cheese in aisle 1.
Pirate’s Booty in aisle 3.
Spiced meat stick before checkout.
Pear nectar sample on the way out the door.
Luckily, our coop is on the small side. The woman at the register was very nice about ringing up toddler-mangled, empty food packages.
#48 in my movie challenge for the year, Mike Hodges’s I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead is moody, noir and hard to classify. It’s a mystery, a character study, a slow thriller, and most, I suspect, an examination of whether people really can change, especially those who have had lives of violence. The cast is superb–Clive Owen, Charlotte Rampling, and Malcolm MacDowell, among others. I was engaged until then end, when a few things occurred that didn’t quite hold together. Owen and Hodges worked together on Croupier, a 1998 film recommended to me by my friend Rock Hack. I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead is worthwhile, but Croupier is the stronger of the two films.
#71 in my book challenge for the year, Never Let Me Go was a recommendation of Michael Schaub at Blog of a Bookslut. I took Schaub’s warning and advice to read the book soon and not to read reviews of it beforehand, since it is a mystery of sorts, some of which is spoiled in reviews. It has been shortlisted for this year’s Booker prize. In the book, there are gradual unveilings rather than sudden surprises, both for the characters and for the readers. Ishiguro does a wonderful job of ensuring that the reader does not reach conclusions far in advance of the characters. It mainly focuses on the lives of three English school friends, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy. It’s hinted at, then made clearer, that this story is science fiction/fantasy. Kathy’s narration is often emotionally distant, but the society that these three inhabit is all about distance and euphemism. The low-level emotions are well suited to the story. This book is beautifully written, with strong characters, a compelling story, and it pulled me through quickly to its end. The sci-fi/fantasy topic it centers on was handled so delicately and believably that it is chilling to think about, long after I have closed the book. There was a young adult novel on the same theme a few years ago that garnered awards and praise that I felt were based more on its challenging topic than on the quality of the book, which I found poorly written. (Follow this link to see, if you don’t mind the spoiler of what the theme is.) Never Let Me Go was a far more fulfilling read and complex examination of the topic, suitable for both adults and older teens.
With our son Drake just past two and another kid due in February, I knew a double stroller purchase was on the horizon. I’d begun to research our options, side by side or front/back, cheap or expensive, etc. My brief research indicated that there weren’t that many good options, rather ones that were better than others. Then G. Grod, obviously hard at work, send me a link to this profile at Salon. Not only does this sound and look like a great stroller, but the profile is written by Marjorie Ingall, my favorite writer from the late, lamented, Sassy magazine. Perhaps I don’t have to do much more research, just start clipping coupons and saving pennies.
I swear, I didn’t teach him this. On purpose, at least.
Drake was playing with the bottle of nose drops when he pointed to the black dot with the black ring around and said very clearly, “Target.” I stared at him as if he were possessed. I teach Drake the names of lots of things. He is currently able to identify not just fire trucks and police cars, but also Beetle Bugs and PT Cruisers. But I have never directly identified Target, though he’s accompanied me on countless errands there.
I forgot about this till the other day we were at a store that had a toy delivery truck with the Target name and logo on the side. Sure enough, Drake pointed at it, and said, “Mommy, Target.”
He’s two. And he can identify the trademarked bullseye design.
What have I done?
I’ve long been a fan of cupcakes, and their popularity is reaching a fever pitch. Most big cities now have a bakery solely or largely devoted to them. Cupcakes are small, portable, finger food with the potential for good design and great taste. The twin cities have the simply named Cupcake, and I can confirm their wares are delicious. There’s at least one blog, Cupcakes Take the Cake, about them, too. Thanks to Blogenheimer for the link.
#47 in my movie challenge, Zhang Yimou’s House of Flying Daggers has stunningly lovely visuals, intricately choreographed fight scenes, and a prohibitively slow pace. This film was another in the list of recent disappointments. We’d been waiting a long time in the electronic queue at the library, and I think the anticipation built over time. G. Grod was hoping that our friend Blogenheimer was wrong (no offense, B) and that it would be better than Yimou’s companion film, Hero. According to G. Grod, it is not, and he enjoyed neither of Yimou’s films more than he did Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Visually an achievement, but the pace was slow and the romance never felt genuine to me.
Did anyone else besides me in the Twin Cities have J. Geils’ song running through their head last night? In one of those rare instances, the weather people were not being alarmist, and it was indeed a severe thunderstorm. Power was out for 8 hours, we got water on both front and back porches and our attic window broke, but nothing was serious. Drake was not at all scared. He was thrilled when we let him hold the big Maglite flashlight. He’d turn it on and off. When off, he’d look out the window at the lightning, then cry, “Flashing! Flashing!” Then we read him books by flashlight and put him to bed early, with nary a peep. He slept till almost 8 this morning. What a guy.
If you, like me, are lucky enough not to have any lasting property damage, then you may still be worried about the television you missed, notably the season premiere of Lost. I called KSTP, and they will be replaying Lost on Saturday October 8 from 7 to 8 locally. Also, Lost was to be followed by the series premier of Invasion. According to Tivo, ABC is scheduled to nationally re-run the pilot and the second episode of Invasion on Saturday October 1 starting at 7 p.m.
Heads up to all readers and writers in the twin cities that the Twin Cities Book Festival is Saturday, October 15. It features well known writers both from Minnesota and beyond. I look forward to seeing local writers Alison McGhee and Pete Hautman, who write both adult and young adult novels.
#46 in my movie challenge for the year, Finding Neverland was good, but not great. Johnny Depp did a wonderful job, and the movie had some lovely effects for the interplay between reality and imaginination. It did a valiant job avoiding sentimentality. Even so, there were times that it dipped, perhaps unavoidably given the subject matter, into preciousness. One other thing that nagged was that it has not been that long since I’ve read Peter Pan; the presentation of how Barrie viewed children in the movie does not mesh with my memory of the book. I recall that the book portrays children as selfish and rather cruel. It doesn’t paint Peter Pan in a romantic or likeable way. I will have to re-read my copy (which has lovely illustrations by the late Trina Schart Hyman, one of my favorite illustrators) to see if the disjunction lies in my memory or in the film.
#70 in my book challenge for the year, Tricked was a disappointment. It was one of the hyped graphic novels after the San Diego comic convention. I very much enjoyed Robinson’s previous series, Box Office Poison, which has been collected in a lovely edition by Top Shelf Productions. Some of what I liked about BOP was evident here, such as Robinson’s distinctive and iconic art, his snappy dialogue and the characters that are so well developed and true to life that I kept feeling like if I didn’t actually know them, I knew someone just like them. But Tricked fell apart for me under the weight of its central plot. Six characters’ stories are told alternately, until all of them come together near the end for a big occurrence. Few things about Tricked surprised me, and several things annoyed me. One character, an unstable loser who has stopped taking his meds, is supposed to be unlikeable. But he gets so much story and so many pages that he still becomes wearing. The most central character is Ray Beam, a jerk of a former music star who still milks his fame even though he’s been creatively inactive for years. A third is a guy who makes a living forging sports paraphernalia. It’s hard, but not impossible, to pull off a story that centers on an unlikeable character. But to have fully half of the main cast of six be unlikeable made the story often hard to engage with. Further, the other three main characters are all good-hearted women, so the story feels artificially balanced. If you loved Box Office Poison, there is much to like here, but if you haven’t read Robinson’s work before, I recommend starting with BOP before giving Tricked a try.
I recently saw a friend who complained I was posting too many reviews; she wanted to know more about what was going on in my life. I know the posts can get review-heavy, but I spend a lot of my time on books and movies, so the reviews are a reflection of what is going on in my life, at least in part.
I have also been asked more than once how I find the time to read, to write, and to watch movies in addition to caring for a toddler. The answer is simple, though it’s not easy. I set myself book and movie challenges because I did not feel I was reading or seeing movies enough. The reason I have a weblog is so I keep up a regular writing practice. I’ve moved these things to the top of my priority list, which means other things get moved down, or even bumped off.
I have time because I make time. I make time for these things by not doing other things. My father has a few favorite phrases, one of which is “everything is a compromise.” The older I get the more I see how true it is. I can write, or read, or watch a movie, but it means I don’t clean the bathroom, do laundry, obsessively check my email, surf the ‘net, or dabble in other hobbies. I used to play the flute and do counted cross-stitch projects. I got rid of these things because I wanted to focus on the things I already love, which include books, music, cooking, movies, television, and comics.
I’m able to finish books because I take time to read. I’m not a fast reader, but I am a consistent one. I read a little bit when Drake goes down for his nap, then again before I go to sleep at night. I take my book with me wherever I go, so if I have a spare moment I can get a little reading done. There are so many things that can distract me, but by eschewing some things and focusing on others, I have a life that better reflects what is truly important to me.
My friend Queenie and I finally managed to plan a night out for dinner, leaving the kids at home with our respective husbands. Eating out without Drake was a huge relief. I could relax, sit back, and focus on my friend and the meal without having to worry, wrangle, and admonish. Also, we could pick a restaurant for grownups, so we did. We went to Vincent in downtown Minneapolis. Vincent has a good staff, is not pretentious, and has wonderful food at non-outlandish prices. The best meal I’ve had there was the chef’s tasting menu, which G. Grod and I tried for our anniversary one year. This time, though, I wanted something a little less fancy–the Vincent burger. It’s been awarded the “Best Gourmet Burger” in the twin cities, and it is quite something. It has beef short ribs surrounded by chopped sirloin, topped with smoked gouda and a mayonnaise sauce studded with bits of cornichon. Officially, this burger is only available for lunch and at the bar, but when I asked the hostess, she said we could order it for dinner in the main dining room if we liked. I suspect the question has been asked before. This is a burger to dream about, accompanied, of course, by a generous pile of salty, crunchy frites.
We did not, though, go to a nice French restaurant and only get the burger. To start, Queenie ordered her favorite appetizer, the beet carpaccio. The thin-sliced ruby beets are garnished with nuggets of goat cheese and a tangle of lightly dressed frisee greens. I was torn between getting a former favorite, the pan-seared scallops with leeks and fingerling potatoes in orange sauce, or trying something new. Feeling brave, I ordered the seared prawns with seaweed salad in a tamari vinaigrette. I was not disappointed, though I was glad to be feeling brave, since I had to shimmy the heads off the prawns. The seared fish combined with the cool salad and the salty dressing was a balanced ensemble.
We could not finish our burgers; our server assured us that this was the norm. Nonetheless we contemplated the dessert menu, and debated between ordering one or two. After deciding on one, the server misunderstood and brought both, which was hardly a tragedy. Queenie got the Three Creams: creme caramel, creme brulee and pot de creme. The extra accidental dessert was the mixed berries with old-fashioned ricotta. It was too sweet for my taste with its strawberry sauce, but we both enjoyed sharing all three creams in what we both agreed was the superior dessert. Full and happy, we returned to our homes, glad to be reminded that dining out need not end with the advent of a child, though it does entail more planning challenges.
Salon has an excellent interview with Melanie Rehak, who has a new book out focusing on the history of Nancy, and the two women writers (neither of whom was Carolyn Keene; as a reader of this blog you would know that, right?) who largely authored the original books. Thanks to my husband G. Grod for sending me the link.
The character of Nancy annoys some feminists with her rich dad, fashionable clothes, and sporty roadster. I found these things distracting because they made it harder to relate to her, but they didn’t bother me. I liked the books a lot, read all the yellow hardcovers, as well as some of the older versions of the story from the library. I never liked her quite as well as I did Trixie Belden, but she is the original titian-haired sleuth, and she did have an important place on my bookshelf as a child.
Weird point of Nancy Drew/Hardy Boy trivia: if you’re in a used book store and there are multiple copies of the same book, take a look at the page count. At some point, the publisher put out shorter versions of the same books, both to save on paper and because they were for kids who didn’t need the finesse of all those extra words anyway (ha!). So if you’re buying old copies for yourself or your kids, be aware that there is more than one version of any story. Yes, there are the original, 1930’s era Nancy stories, in which she is sixteen and blond, and has a black housekeeper. These books are tough to read because of the racial stereotypes, but interesting as context for the series. But don’t assume that there’s just one version of the later Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys hardcovers–look for the longer, older ones.
The new season starts in earnest this week, with lots of premieres, both season and series. After careful consideration of my Entertainment Weekly, here is what is going to be on our Tivo this season:
Sunday: nothing
Monday: premiers tonight! 9/19: Arrested Development, followed by Kitchen Confidential, Fox, 8 to 9, EST. Not sure about KC, which is adapted from Anthony Boudain’s memoir of the same name, but will give it a try, since it’s just 30 minutes.
Tuesday: premiers tomorrow, 9/20: My Name is Earl (redneck karmic comedy), starring Jason Lee. NBC, 9 to 9:30 EST. Already premiered: Bones (David Boreanaz, channeling deadpan Duchovny, plays another former killer who wants to atone for his past, aided by far-too-fashionably-dressed-to-be-as-out-of-touch-as-she-says anthropologist Emily Deschanel), followed by House, Fox 8 to 10 EST.
Wednesday: premiers day after tomorrow, 9/21: Lost, followed by Invasion (produced by Shaun Cassidy! Starring William Fichtner! Not necessarily about aliens!), ABC, 9 to 11 EST. Also, premiering next week is my last year’s fave, girl detective Veronica Mars, UPN 9 to 10 EST.
Thursday: nothing
Friday: as if sci-fi Friday needed another entry. We’ve got Firefly and Battlestar Galactica on the Sci-Fi channel, and are adding Threshold (aliens and Carla Gugino!), which debuted last week, CBS, 9 to 10 EST.
So if we add in our weekly half hour of Ebert and Roeper, then it’s ten hours of TV a week, averaging more than an hour a night. I’m guessing this will be whittled down as we actually watch these shows and see how they are. Rescue Me has just finished, coincidentally just when G. Grod and I decided we were finished with it. And I just cannot bring myself to care about the O.C. any longer.
A few questions. Where did I pick up the crush on Fichtner? I think it was already there when Blackhawk Down came out, and the IMDB is no help. Also, why was it Matthew Fox in wet clothes on the cover of EW, and not Sayeed? WHY???
I did finally get a copy of Entertainment Weekly’s Fall TV issue, thanks to the Har Mar Barnes & Noble, and no thanks to my local Target, which I’d been haunting just about daily for over a week.
I’m beginning to suspect a depressing truth, and that is that no show is as good after the first season. Prove me wrong, discuss, but I can’t think of an example. So it is with some trepidation that I look forward to the premier of last year’s favorite Veronica Mars on Wednesday September 28th. (My bet for who was at the door? Wallace. Though I really wish it were Logan.)
EW hyped Prison Break, which started a couple weeks ago. I fretted that I’d missed it, but the folks at TeeVee say that it’s “Fox dumb.” So I think I’m OK with giving it a miss.
I watched the premier of Bones along with the season premier of House on Tuesday, and both were good, not great. I agree with TeeVee’s assessment of Bones:
But underneath the surface, there’s at least the skeleton of a good TV show here. If Bones, inspired by the books of forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs, doesn’t get everything right – and it definitely doesn’t – at least it absolutely nails the things it needs to get right.
Tonight is the premier of Threshold, one of several Lost-ish supernatural shows. According to EW it’s one of the best, and it also stars Carla Gugino, one of G. Grod’s crushes, so we’ll be adding it to our sci-fi Friday lineup, which now has to be lowercase, since Threshold is on CBS. So the order of operations is: Firefly, Threshold, and Battlestar Galactica. Three hours of TV in one night? Thank goodness for Tivo.
#69 in my book challenge for the year, Other Electricities was highly recommended both at Blog of a Bookslut and The Lit Blog Co-op. It’s a collection of connected stories, narrated by different characters of a small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
He remembered reading fragments of a story from a National Geographic…Most of the story had been lost, but he was able to pick up on the leftover bits…With these points of reference he was able to reconstruct the story to his satisfaction. In a way, it was like reconstructing old fragmented poems, or like translating from one language to another, from a world of hard but sparse facts to a storyscape of soft, fulfulling fictions. P. 142
Taken individually, some of the stories are quite powerful, like the one of the title and “To Reduce Your Likelihood of Murder.” Monson’s stories were defiantly fragmented, and in the end what I wanted was that “storyscape of soft, fulfilling fictions.” What I found instead was a group of well-written, intriguing stories about characters who moved by too quickly for me to develop any deep attachment. The stories, like the town in which they are set, are chilly and harsh. This is not a novel in stories, and it is not a comforting book. But it is a well-written and challenging one, especially for those who love the short story form or experimental fictions.
The author of Mental Multivitamin is not a fan of memes, yet she put out a very meme-like challenge.
But a list of ten books that reveals something about you… that’s a challenge.
Ten books above all others that have shaped or even defined you.
I especially applaud her note that naming one’s ten favorite books is rather silly, if not impossible. In the spirit of taking up the gauntlet, and striving hard to pick ten and only ten, here are my picks in chronological order.
1. Trixie Belden #1: Secret of the Mansion by Julie Campbell. My mom gave this to me for Christmas when I was in third grade, and I was an immediate fan. I liked Trixie more than Nancy Drew because she seemed like a real person with a real family. I read both series, as well as the Hardy Boys, but my loyalty to Trixie never wavered, and my love for girl detectives was begun.
2. The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart. My first Merlin book, which I read in fourth or fifth grade. Completely mesmerized me, and started a penchant for seeking out books before I was probably old enough to really “get” them.
3. Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey. My cousin lent this to me when I was in seventh grade, and it was probably my first favorite fantasy novel. A girl and her very own telepathic dragon–what could be better than that? I read all the sequels, but stopped eventually when I got older and they got more terrible.
4. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon, which I read the summer after my sophomore year in college, is the book I credit with pulling me out of the non-literary diaspora. I read a lot, but it was almost all crap–bodice rippers, Steven King, bestsellers, stuff that I haven’t bothered to keep on my shelf. Chabon’s first novel was clever, funny, sad and human, and it made me want to be a better reader.
5. Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block. I read this based on a recommendation in the late, lamented Sassy magazine. It showed me that young-adult books could be smart and beautifully written. I still love reading young adult novels and I’m getting my own young-adult manuscript ready to submit for publication.
6. Sandman #1: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman. One of several graphic novels and comics that my then-boyfriend gave me as an introduction to comics, and one of my lasting favorites. It’s proof that Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns, while both are excellent, aren’t for everybody; different gateway comics will attract different readers. Sandman’s 75 issues worked well as individual stories and as a whole. Literary, beautiful, mythical, with characters that live on in the mind and heart.
7. House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. This was the book being read by a not-yet-then-close-friend’s book club. I saw a flyer for it on her fridge when I attended a party at her house. “Can I come, too?” I asked, and then was echoed by the English woman beside me, who would also become a close friend. I didn’t finish the book in time for the meeting, and didn’t love it even when I did, but becoming part of that book group was one of the most important intellectual and individual growth periods of my life. Yes, there are a lot of cliches about book clubs, but this was a group of smart, eclectic women who got together for food and we truly discussed the books. I taught myself to be a reader in that group. It also was the site of one of my proudest accomplishments–I got all of us to stop prefacing comments with “This may be stupid, but…” or “I’m sorry, but…” and to acknowledge that as intelligent women we shouldn’t be apologizing for what we had to say.
8. Possession by A. S. Byatt. One of the selections for book group that I did love, and the one that helped me realize I needed to quit my job and go back to grad school to study religion. It is poetry, prose, mystery, romance, and literature. It is a feast of a book.
9. I Don’t Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson
and
10. The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (published by the wonderful and lovely Persephone Books).
Reading these, one after the other, helped me make another big life change. Pearson’s book is a funny yet wrenching story of a mother who tries and fails to have a successful business career and be the mother she wants to be. The Home-Maker is about a family whose parents switch roles when the mother has to become the breadwinner, and how that changes them all. The books were written decades apart, but the themes and difficulties are similar. Both helped me realize that Drake was not thriving in day care, and that I wanted to be home with him full time to see if it made a difference. It has, for both of us. Drake is happier and healthier, and I’ve found it easier to focus on my writing and mothering, priorities that were muddled when mixed in with my job.
I think you can tell by the list that I’ve been honest. I could’ve picked a lot more erudite books than the ones I’ve listed. I was also torn–there are a handful of books I had to leave off that also had special places in my life: Henry V, Flux by Peggy Orenstein, The World of Pooh, Bread and Jam for Frances, and Anne of Green Gables all were nearly on the list. But the ten above are the ones about which I felt most strongly, even if I didn’t like them or don’t think they’re good anymore, so they’re the ones that are there.
So, how about it? What ten books reveal something about you, and have shaped YOUR life?
#68 in my book challenge for the year, The Driver’s Seat is a little book that packs a big impact. It’s a single novella of just over 100 pages that follows Lise, a thirty-ish accountant, as she goes on holiday to Naples, Italy. Lise’s behavior grows increasingly erratic. It is clear from the start that something bad will happen; Spark even details what it is. It is how Spark unspools how it happens, and what happens exactly, though, that is what makes this book masterfully suspenseful and a creepy little gem.