Girl Detective

#67 in my book challenge for the year is also Drake’s new favorite book. I’m not sure I can say it’s his first graphic novel, because he has quite enjoyed the Edward Gorey books we’ve read to him, The Doubtful Guest, The Epiplectic Bicycle, and The Gashlycrumb Tinies, the latter at least before G. Grod, being squeamish, “disappeared” it. I found The Clouds Above, which is published by Fantagraphics Books, at the comic book store, and was drawn by the shape, size, cover, paper quality and charming illustrations. The story is the adventure of a boy named Simon and his cat, Jack, who escape school into the clouds above. They encounter clouds both good and bad, a villainous teacher, and some very cranky birds. Drake has requested this book by name almost every day since we brought it home. While long to read aloud, it’s great fun for me, too.

#66 in my book challenge for the year. I read a recommendation of this book at Blog of a Bookslut. The novel centers on a man named Vincent Nolan, a former neo-nazi skinhead, who shows up at a peace organization run by a Holocaust survivor. The story is told from alternating viewpoints. The characters are rich and complex, their voices are distinct, and the story had a powerful pull. This was an extremely strong, well-written novel. I thought the ending pushed my bounds of belief, but I so liked the characters that I didn’t begrudge it to them.

#45 in my movie challenge for the year was a big disappointment. It is a rare occasion that I get out to see a movie in the theater. The movie I really wanted to see, Hustle and Flow, was showing in just a few theaters and at inconvenient times. March of the Penguins, though, was showing at the close theater with good popcorn at a convenient time, so even though it wasn’t high on my list, I decided to give it a shot. While beautifully filmed under difficult conditions, the story, which is meant to be shocking, actually rather bored me. Yes, the penguins were awfully cute, but more than once it glossed over penguin death. Once they said that penguins who lag behind just “fade away” and later they say that a penguin father who does not survive the storm will just “disappear.” Buried under snow? Eaten by other penguins? Picked off by predators? The movie doesn’t say. There are times that the movie does show some of the more difficult moments, as when a mother penguin gets eaten by a seal, a penguin couple loses their egg, and baby pengins get attacked by a gull. But the movie can’t seem to decide how real it should get. Even these potentially disturbing scenes were primly edited. Ultimately, I wanted to know about the exceptions: what happens to the penguins who don’t conceive, whose mother’s don’t come back, the mothers who come back to find a dead father or baby, how many survive, how many die? March of the Penguins was lovely to look at and did have an interesting story. But the story, no matter how skillfully narrated by Morgan Freeman, did not delve in complexity or sophistication beyond the level of basic television. There were two other true animal movies out this summer, and I think my time and money would have been better spent on either The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill or Grizzly Man.

#44 in my movie challenge for the year is Mira Nair’s Vanity Fair. This is a visually stunning interpretation of the classic book. Reese Witherspoon proves yet again that she’s not just a pretty face and has some serious talent. This bittersweet tale of poor, unconnected Becky Sharp, who gets by on her wits and talent, was both engaging and beautiful to look at.

#43 in my movie challenge for the year, To Have and Have Not is the second Bogey and Bacall movie of recent weeks, this is a lesser known charmer, and the first movie in which they worked together, and the one on which they fell in love. She is lovely to look at, entrancing to listen to, and the story is pretty good, too. Bogey is an outsider in France who is talked into helping someone from the resistance–sound familiar? This one has some great lines: “Just put your lips together and blow,” and “Have you ever been bit by a dead bee?” Perhaps it helps to have someone like William Faulkner working on the screenplay of a Hemingway novel. This movie is a great example of why it pays to keep an eye on what they’re showing on Turner Classic Movies.

I am currently obsessing about the Entertainment Weekly TV preview issue and why the heck I haven’t been able to get a copy yet. I’ve considered getting a subscription so I can stop this annual haunting of the newstands, but the Minneapolis post office can be slow, and it IS only this one issue that I crave.

I am currently paranoid about listeria. It is the one food poisoning that can cross the placenta, and in the past few weeks I’ve been laughing in the face of danger, consuming lunch meat, blue cheese, unpasteurized honey. I figured, hey, it’s rare and I’ll know if I get it within 48 hours. Apparently it can take WEEKS to manifest, and while rare it is usually deadly to the fetus. So I’m regretting my blithe, “this is my second pregnancy; no need to be paranoid like the first” attitude, and will be paranoid for the next month, at least.

I am currently fretting about pants. My regular pants and skirts don’t fit in the waist. Maternity wear looks as if I’m playing dress up. I’m in that awkward stage, which I hope I grow out of soon.

I am currently looking forward to watching TV tonight. My husband G. Grod and I call it “Sci-Fi Friday.” After Drake goes to bed we watch the Tivo’d Firefly then Battlestar Galactica, which has gotten crazy good.

I am currently between books, having just finished two whoppingly good ones, Francine Prose’s A Changed Man and Muriel Sparks’s The Driver’s Seat. Haven’t committed to the next book yet. Candidates include Other Electricities by Ander Monson, Tricked graphic novel by Alex Robinson, and The Skin Chairs by Barbara Comyns.

I am currently feeling a bit better from the cold, and a strange but not uncommon-for-me home-economy resolve has surfaced, which is to clear out the fridge, the freezer and the pantry of the stuff that’s been sitting around for weeks or longer and use it up. I have a LOT of rhubarb, though. And I don’t even like rhubarb.

I just picked up a couple this week, but thought I’d do quick reviews, in case any of these titles are ones you’ve wondered about picking up.

Seven Soldiers: The Manhattan Guardian #4 by Grant Morrison. I’ve liked but not loved the Seven Soldiers series, but the last few issues have begun to tie all the threads together, and I’m hoping that it will work well as a whole. The art in TMG has gotten a lot of attention, including the New York Times, but I think this was the most entertaining story thus far.

Gotham Central #35 by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker. This is a really solid crime comic with great characterization among the staff of the Gotham City detective unit. The current storyline has young boys dressed as Robin turning up dead. Are they Robin? Is there more than one Robin? And who’s killing them? The art is perfectly suited to the story, and this is one of my favorite monthly titles.

Fell #1 by Warren Ellis. I liked this comic even before I read the “Backmatter” by Ellis, after which I liked it even more. Ellis said he wanted to put together a comic that told an individual story, yet cost less than the usual $2.25 and up comics. This one, at under $1.99, does exactly that. A single, self-contained story, yet one that lays the groundwork for future related ones, and at the old fashioned price of under $2. Ellis can get a bit gonzo for my tastes sometimes, but when he’s on, he’s good, and this is a good comic at a good price. Check it out.

From a few weeks ago:

Rocketo by Frank Espinosa. NICE! A fantasy story about an Atlantis-like world about a young boy named Rocketo who grows into a famous adveturer/cartographer. Lovely art, compelling story, a top rather than a side binding, good colors and nice paper stock for the covers and interior. This looks like a very promising new series.

Drake has been napping sporadically lately. Often I will put him down at the usual time, and if he’s not ready to go to sleep he’ll talk and sing and holler until he does, or until he sounds unhappy enough for me to go get him. Yesterday he sang the ABCs several times (with a bewildering “ah-go, sah-go” for W-X), then amazed me when he launched into the Philadelphia Eagles fight song and sang every word. He did not sing it again, but I called G. Grod at work to let him know. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard G. sound much happier.

#65 in my book challenge for the year. I was disapponted by this book. Nafisi, a former professor of literature in Iran, discusses the complex melange of books, war and people that she experienced in her teaching years. The book begins and ends with a private reading group she assembles of former female students of hers. A quote by a friend of hers near the end sums up what I felt was a big problem with this memoir:

As he carries in the two mugs of tea I tell him, You know, I feel all my life has been a series of departures. He raises his eyebrows, placing the mugs on the table, and looks at me as if he had expected a prince and all he could see was a frog. Then we both laugh. He says, still standing, You can say this sort of crap in the privacy of these four walls–I am your friend; I shall forgive you–but don’t ever write this in your book. I say, But is is the truth. Lady, he says, we do not need your truths but your fiction–if you’re any good, perhaps you can trickle in some sort of truth, but spare us your real feelings. P. 338

Nafisi’s memoir goes into depth about the books they read, and about the people in her life, but is frustratingly vague about her own self. It as if the narrator is a void, through which she talks about books and other people. I found it a bit unsettling that she spent more time narrating others’ stories than her own. I also found her use of quotation marks inconsistent and difficult to read. But I did appreciate Nafisi’s insights into the novels she and her students read, including Lolita, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, and Daisy Miller, and am interested to read or re-read them. This book is a good complement to Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis graphic novels, but I preferred those to this. Satrapi is the main character of her narrative, not an insubstantial observer and periodic participant in her own story.

I wonder if some of the popularity of this book comes from readers who crave but did not experience the kind of critical, deep readings of books that Nafisi does with her students.

My father has taken the month of September off for a boat trip. He plans to take his boat, a refurbished ‘71 Hatteras Express Cruiser, from Kelleys Island in Lake Erie to Florida via inland waterways. Sadly, the boat has broken down in Michigan, but when he does start up again, the rest of the trip will be posted here.

I’ve written before about how I’ve become a faithful library patron. A few weeks ago, I tried the “recommend” feature on my library’s web site. It allows me to recommend an item, then put myself on the wait list if they do purchase it. There are now five items on my wait list that weren’t previously in the library’s collection. I’m thrilled, but I must remember to use this power for good, not evil.

#64 in my book challenge for the year. As with all the Potter books, an enjoyable, fast read that is darker and more complex than the books that preceded it.

In a wonderful reversal, Harry no longer hesitates about telling people his suspicions, so there is no contrived conflict as there has been in the previous five books. Instead, and much more believably, I think, sometimes people believe him, sometimes they don’t.

Snape’s character is continually called into question. Malfoy is up to something, but no one believes Harry as to what it is. A new professor, Slughorn, is introduced. Dumbledore and Harry are finally communicating and spending time together so Harry can learn about Voldemort. And Harry has a crush on a girl, though apparently, many people think she’s the wrong one. (Which is absurd. Those who think this have not been paying attention. Rowling has been dropping hints about these pairings in every single one of the previous books. Silly readers.) And at the end someone important dies, though Harry finds out that there is someone else out there with the initials R. A. B. who has acted against Voldemort. (I have a theory about who this is, by the way, if anyone wants to email me and discuss nerdishly.)

The next book is set up so that Harry will be leaving Hogwart’s and seeking out Voldemort, supposedly on his own. I thought this was a dark, entertaining story that was a good penultimate novel in a series, provided that Rowling can pull off the ending. She has her shortcomings as a writer–sometimes weak prose and a tendency to go on that is not edited now that she is so famous–but plotting is not generally one of them. I look forward to the next and last book in the series.

G. Grod and I are expecting again. Drake’s little sibling is due in late February. This is a bittersweet thing for me to write. While we planned and want to have more than one child, we have several close friends who are struggling to get or to stay pregnant. I’ve become very aware that congratulating someone on pregnancy is very strange–hey guys, good job on you know what!–while the positive attention that pregnant women and women with new babies attract can be like a twisting dagger to those for whom life is far less fair. While I’m excited for us, I’m sad, yet hopeful, for our friends.

For the past three months, I’ve been fatigued and nauseous, which has not done a lot to help my writing habit. If I every get over this rotten cold (two weeks today and counting) I hope to feel better, generally, and be more consistent with this weblog and get back to work on my novel. Because, come February, life’s going to get a lot more complicated.

#63 in my book challenge for the year, published by Alternative Comics. Weird but charming is the best description I find for Kochalka’s work. His books are always odd, but the cute factor of the art combined with the author’s sometimes painfully earnest honesty have found a continual place in my graphic novel collection. This is a wee book, expensive at $19.95, but with a pleasing size and good paper and cover quality. The themes he covers are familiar ones: work with passion, not with craft; fear technology, not nature; embrace love and hope. The middle sections, which focus on 9/11 and the birth of his son, read like extended sections from his Sketchbook Diaries, while the rest focuses on comics criticism and theory. This is not the book to start with if you’ve never read Kochalka (for that I’d recommend Quit Your Job or Fantastic Butterflies), but it’s a worthy, interesting addition if you’re already a fan.

I’m not sure the State Fair visit number 2 was a good idea. I left with a stomachache, probably having sampled one food too many (honey/sunflower-seed ice cream, I’m lookin’ at you.)

Unsurprisingly, the fair is much easier to manage with 2 parents to each child, rather than on mom-to-man defense. Drake had his first pronto pup, the Minnesotan version of a hot dog on a stick, dipped in batter and deep fried. Apparently, corn dogs are an Iowa thing, according to our friends. We also had fried cheese curds (I miss them already), Puff Daddy on a Stick–thai sausage wrapped in puff pastry on a stick drizzled with a peanut sauce (Sausage Sister & Me does badly named but delicious fair food. We also enjoyed their Little Sistazz, finger-food sausage slices in puff pastry), then root beer, a breakfast burrito with guac from Tejas (free coffee!), roasted sweet corn, mini-donuts, Cinnie Smith’s mini cinnamon rolls, and finished with a cider freezie for Drake and the regrettable ice cream for me, which has lost its place on the list. G. Grod got to see a butter sculpture of one of the princess candidates being carved, so he felt his mission to the fair had not been in vain. I see the butter sculptures like most regional oddities–once is perhaps more than enough. Then again, G. Grod only feels the need to go to the fair once a year, as opposed to me, who wants to go as many times as it takes to try all the food that I fancy.

My must-have fair treats list is now honed to cheese curds, Sister & Me sausage, World’s Best french fries, roast corn, Sweet Martha’s chocolate chip cookies, mini donuts, 1919 root beer, and Cinnie Smith’s mini cinnamon rolls.

The food critic for the Star Tribune, Rick Nelson, listed these at the not-to-miss foods that debuted this year. Of them, I only tried the cinnamon rolls and Puff Daddy, but both were so excellent that I will add the other items to next year’s list to try. Of course, next year’s fair visit will be more challenging, since it’s likely I’ll be herding both Drake and his little sibling. Perhaps I’ll need to make three trips to try it all.

- Frozen Mocha on a Stick (Minnesota Farmers Union Coffee Shop, Dan Patch Avenue at Cosgrove Street).
- Mini cinnamon rolls (Cinni Smiths, Murphy Avenue at Cooper Street).
- Sorbet in hollowed-out fruit (Key Lime Pie Bar, Cooper Street at the Skyride).
- Spiral Chips (Sonny’s Spiral Chips & Sandwiches, Food Building).
- Puff Daddy on a Stick (Sausage Sister & Me, Food Building).
- Smoked salmon wrap (Giggles’ Campfire Grill, Cooper Street at Lee Avenue).

#62 in my book challenge for the year. I’ve been reading and loving Vaughan’s Ex Machina and Y the Last Man comic book series for a while, but I had yet to pick up Runaways. My friend the Big Brain told me to be patient; the initial series was going to be collected in a full-size, color hardcover. I’m glad I waited rather than picking up the individual issues here and there. The art, by newcomer Adrian Alphona, is distinctive and engaging, and it benefits from the increase in size. Runaways is the story of six teenagers who accidentally discover that their parents are supervillains. Some have powers of their own, others have gadgets, and one has a genetically engineered pet velociraptor. As the series progresses, both the parents and the teens are fleshed out believably. One of the teens is revealed as the mole, and another turns out to have a surprising crush. In the notes that accompany this collection, Vaughan writes that he was trying to make a true all-ages book, one that could be read, understood and enjoyed by kids and adults. I think he’s succeeded, and am now awaiting the next Runaways collection.

I took two-year-old Drake to the Minnesota State Fair this morning with another mom and her son, and I’m happy to say he had a better time than he did last year. The State Fair is one of my favorite events of the summer. I don’t care about rides, or attractions, or displays. I go for the food. Last year, Drake hardly ate a thing. This year, he was much more engaged.

We started with breakfast burritos at Tejas in the food building, then ran out to get a cup of 1919 root beer and a small basket of World’s Best french fries to watch local television personalities Chef Andrew and M.A. Roscoe do a guacomole-making demonstration. Drake didn’t want either the burrito or the excellent guacamole, but he tackled both the root beer and french fries with enthusiasm. Our next stop was my friend’s priority, the roasted corn stand by the grandstand. The boys ran up and down, always coming back for a bite of the roasted, buttered corn. Next was Sweet Martha’s for a cone of chocolate-chip cookies and a cup of milk. Drake and his toddler friend started dancing to the music coming out of the arcade next door. We continued on to the baby animal barn, which has the somewhat concerning name “Miracle of Birth” building. I’ve given birth, and miraculous wouldn’t be the first adjective I’d choose. Messy fits better, I think. We saw a baby horse, baby turkeys, baby sheep and a new calf, but I had to leave before we went further. The crowds were too much for a small building, and Drake was screaming and kicking in my arms. He was soon appeased, though, by a cider freezie from the agriculture building. As we made out way back to the parking lot, I tried a new treat with an unfortunate name, the Fudge Puppy, which is a piece of Belgian waffle on a stick covered in chocolate and topped with whipped cream. My friend and I agreed that it was good, but no different than a chocolate covered fried doughnut. Much more impressive were the mini cinnamon buns at Cinnie Smith’s, new this year to the fair. The little buns were airy and not greasy, hot but not scalding, and had just the right amount of cinnamon-spiced goo. The frosting was a good complement, but only in moderation. I regretted a too-enthusiastic dunk of one of my last minis.

There were a few of my favorite foods that time and toddlers did not permit me to sample: fried cheese curds, mini-donuts, sausage, honey-sunflower-seed ice cream and a lemon shake. Luckily, we have another fair trip planned for the weekend, so I will have one more opportunity to indulge my annual craving for delicious and spectaculary unhealthy foods.

2002 State Fair entry

There are two problems, and they’re simple.

First, takeout is usually not very good. There is something about pre-prepared food other than pizza that seems to disintegrate by the time it gets home. Since I avoid fast food and most packaged foods, my choices are somewhat limited. Again and again I’ve tried prepared foods from our grocery coop, or takeout from restaurants that I normally like. Too often, it is merely mediocre. As regular readers may have divined, I’m not a big fan of mediocre. Mediocre, as far as I’m concerned, is bad. Food is either good or it’s not.

Second, takeout is usually expensive. There is a premium for convenience. This second point often accompanies and exacerbates the first–the takeout is bad AND it’s expensive. For our family of limited means, this is a cruel double whammy.

A further wrinkle is location. There may be good, reasonably priced takeout places here and there, but unless they’re close to me, they’re largely useless.

I rant because we tried a place last night for the second time. As before, the food was so-so, and the price was high. There was little prep and cleanup, which G. Grod and I were grateful for, since we both have dreadful, lingering viruses. But the cost, both in money and in middling food, is just too high. It is with dread that I contemplate tonight’s dinner.

Why is good takeout so hard to find? Why?

For Drake’s birthday, his grammy kindly sent a bookstore gift card. It was burning a hole in G. Grod’s wallet so we went book shopping this weekend. Plus, I think G. may have harbored a small hope that maybe he or I could justify getting something for ourselves, like the new TPB–trade paperback–of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, or the Low CD The Great Destroyer. We were good, though. We used it all on Drake.

Choosing children’s books has been more of a learning curve for me than I would have thought. My mom thoughtfully kept all the books from when my sisters and I were young, and I oversaw the kids’ section of a large used book store for a year. I felt pretty knowledgeable about kids’ books. But a former colleague from the bookstore shared that he spent years collecting a tremendous children’s library, yet all his kids want to read is Pokemon. Like him, having a kid sharpened my appreciation for what really works. Omnibus collections of multiple stories (George and Martha, Curious George, and Madeleine all have these) are heavy for toddlers to lift and too long to read in one setting, causing tears once the book is shut. Deluxe editions, like The Essential Eloise by Kay Thompson, contain extras that might be interesting to adults, but do not make easy reading to children. And some stories are just disliked, either by parents or by the kid. Both my husband and I dislike Curious George stories, which are long, disjointed and often feature odd or disturbing details, like George being kidnapped from the jungle and later smoking. Other books are fine once or twice, but can become tiresome when asked for several times in a row. Some of our books receive a temporary, and some a permanent, time out. Some of Drake’s favorite books are classics from when I was a child, like Bedtime for Frances, but some of the most successful new books we’ve acquired have been recommendations from other parents. Pancakes, Pancakes by Eric Carle, and several of the mouse books by Kevin Henkes are now well-loved and oft-read books in our library.

As I struggled to winnow our choices, I was reminded why we normally shop in used book stores. Yes, there are some dodgy ethics about the author not getting the proceeds, but I just can’t argue with the sheer bang for the buck of the used books. (Last week, for example, we got 11 books–one for us, 10 for Drake–for $30.)

New bookstores, though, have their own joys, like a wide selection, including new releases, of non-shabby books. I was torn by all the choices, though. Should we get new books, classics, hardcovers, paperbacks? Just as I’d finally made my decisions, G. Grod drew my attention to the book clutched in Drake’s hand. He’d made a choice of his own, so I had to put back a copy of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf. Here are our new books. Try to guess which was Drake’s pick.

Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes
Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
Swimmy by Leo Lionni
Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton
Lift the Flap: Things That Go
I Am Not Sleepy and I Will Not Go to Bed by Lauren Child

Apologies for sporadic posting. I feel like I’m being flung from one thing to the next. First was G. Grod’s surgery, from which he continues to recover nicely. Then was Drake’s birthday, and this week it’s a very nasty head cold. I can’t quite get my groove back, and I’ve not worked on my novel in a while. I am trying, though,and hope to be back up to speed soon.