Girl Detective

#73 in my book challenge for the year was The Queen of Everything. This book had a lot of good things, and a lot of distractions. 17 year old Jordan’s father suddenly starts acting weird when he begins an affair with a married woman. The book foreshadows a lot of what is to come. Jordan isn’t able to talk to her friend, who she doesn’t actually like very much, or her mother, who she dismisses as a hippie. When she tries to talk to her grandfather, bad things ensue. Jordan’s voice is strong, and she is a believable teen, though sometimes quite unlikeable. Her romance with a bad boy is painfully drawn out. Additionally, she often quotes Big Mama, a woman who helped her in the aftermath of the difficulties with her father. Jordan’s relationship with Big Mama, as well as Big Mama’s salmon anecdotes, reminded me unpleasantly of the movie cliche of the “Mystical Negro” who has to explain life lessons to the sheltered white kid. What stood out most, though, was how the nasty situation with Jordan’s father was not dumbed down or glossed over. This book doesn’t talk down to its intended young-adult readers.

#72 in my book challenge for the year, Magic or Madness was recommended to me by Duff at Girlreaction, who sent me this link, noting “This sounds like something you’d like.” Isn’t it wonderful to have other kindred readers looking out for you? I certainly think so, and this book is a great example. I liked it a lot, and thought it a really good young-adult fantasy novel. Reason is a fifteen year old Australian girl who has been on the run with her mother Sarafina all her life. They’ve been running from Sarafina’s mother Esmeralda, who Sarafina claimed was an evil person who pretended magic was real. Now, however, Sarafina has been institutionalized, and Reason has to go live with her grandmother. She soon discovers that magic is real when she opens a door to New York City. She meets two other teens, Tom and Jay-Tee. Separately and together they must determine whether the adults in their life are trying to help them, or help themselves. The writing is strong, the characters are likeable, but the biggest strength of this novel lies in its ambiguity. There are no absolute answers given, so the reader is left to draw her own conclusions, along with Reason. This book clearly paves the way for a sequel, which I look forward to.

G. Grod and I live far from our families, so we don’t have the luxury of dropping Drake off at a relative’s house. Luckily, we’ve made good friends in the year we’ve lived in our new house, one of whom offered to swap childcare with us once a month. For politeness’s sake I said I had to check with G. Grod, but he agreed as readily as me.

We considered dinner and a movie, but the movie times were tight, and we wanted to take our time over dinner. Then we had to decide where to go. I assembled a list of six different restaurants, then emailed my favorite local food critic for her opinion, since she has been invaluably helpful in the past. Alas for us and good for her, she was out of town on her honeymoon, so we were on our own. We narrowed our choices down to two restaurants. One, Restaurant Alma, we had not been to in a long time, but is not far and very nice. It’s expensive, but that’s based on the high quality of its mostly local, organic ingredients. The other option was a French restaurant that had just opened the previous Monday. It also was expensive, and its menu sounded exquisite. Eventually we decided on the restaurant we’d been to before. We have too little time and money to act like we’re on the cutting edge of fine dining. Let others with more resources test out the new place, and let the staff and kitchen work out the kinks in the first couple weeks. We’ll go if we get the confirmation of a good review.

G. Grod and I both had a three-course, prix-fixe menu. I started with fresh buffalo mozzarella slices layered between slabs of roasted squash and garnished with dabs of herbed olive oil. G. had a beef terrine with spicy mustard. Next, I had orzo and lobster in a white wine and butter sauce. The orzo was done perfectly, tender and each grain separate, with the lightly sauced lobster chunks as a complement. G. had orecchiette pasta with spicy sausage and fall greens. For our entrees, I chose the pan seared Kobe beef garnished sparingly with black truffle hollandaise, and roasted celery root and carrots. G. had the sauteed scallops in a red wine rosemary sauce. We hemmed a little over whether to get dessert at all, or whether to share, but eventually could not agree on one, so got one apiece. G. got the chocolate tasting plate, with a dark chocolate terrine, rum chocolate cashew truffle, chocolate sea salt cookie, and caramel ice cream. While it sounded delicious, I felt I needed something a little less heavy, so I had the buttermilk panna cotta with dried cherries, which was sweet and light and tangy and bright. It was a lovely finish to a lovely meal. Each dish of each course was small and perfectly executed. The sauces and garnishes always allowed the high quality of the main ingredient to shine. The timing was steady, but neither rushed nor too slow. The service was attentive but not intrusive, and my water glass never ran dry.

We returned home just after Drake had gone to bed, so we visited with our friends and their daughter, then watched our movie. It was a lovely meal, and a lovely night, made all the more lovely for the kindness of friends who enabled it, as well as its rarity, which allowed us to savor it.

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.