Girl Detective

My 5yo son Drake has always been a challenging child. “Oppositional” is what his pediatrician called him at the three-year check up. Every year I’d ask the doc about autism. Every year he’d tell me not to worry. Then at the last one, I pressed him. “OK,” he admitted. “Drake’s a little different.” The doc advised me to increase his playdates to improve his social skills, decrease his screen time, and increase his physical activity.

When Drake returned for his third year of preschool (he has a late summer birthday; I delayed kindergarten because of his social issues), he had behavioral problems. His teacher and I sought help from the public school system. After a thorough observation, the team confirmed what I’d suspected–Drake was “on the spectrum.” High-functioning Asperger’s syndrome is a good approximation, though the education team was quick to say it wasn’t a medical diagnosis, only an education term to get him help in areas of difficulty.

I haven’t written about this because it feels full of land mines. Am I pathologizing my kid? If I write about him, am I pimping out his problems? Many who know us make it clear–politely or not–that they think Drake’s normal and we’ve been hoodwinked by modern fear mongers into pigeonholing our child. I’m also wary of blithely announcing “my kid’s autistic” because I don’t want to trespass on the pain of those families whose spectrum experiences are much more difficult than ours. But not writing about it has gotten to the point where I can’t celebrate really cool things, and that, I feel, is a loss to Drake.

Since late fall, he’s had OT and attended a social skills class. His communication has improved, and his formerly frequent tantrums are fewer and less intense. Every week a short bus picks him up and drops him off; he’s unaware of the stigma about the size of the bus. Last week, he got off the bus, then ran back to a window. Two kids from his class were inside, waving goodbye and calling to him, all smiles. He responded in kind. It was a sweet, genuine moment, all the more so because I know these kids struggle with social interaction and friendship.

The social struggles begin at home. Like most kids, Drake fights with his younger brother, 3yo Guppy. For years, now, a typical pattern is Guppy will cry, then Drake will scream because he’s can’t stand the noise. This cycle might sound funny, unless you’ve endured it as many times as I have. Eventually, at my urging, Drake would leave the room. At 3yo, though, Guppy still cries and screams a lot. A few times lately, Drake has followed my advice and tried to make Guppy feel better. He does this by quoting lines by the Swedish Chef from Boom Comics’ Muppet Show comic. That makes Guppy laugh, and the tantrum gets defused. It’s a bizarre, but hilarious, solution to the problem.

Another change got noticed by a friend. After a recent playdate, the mom sent me an email with the subject line, “Drake ate food!” She is well aware of the struggles I’ve had over my picky and painfully skinny little boy’s eating habits. That day, though, he ate everything she offered for lunch: sandwich, veggies, fruit and more. Amazingly, the trend holds with us, too. He’s sampled foods he formerly shunned, like tacos, spaghetti, salad and tostadas. He devours edamame from the shell. He recently pronounced something spicy but awesome. With food, as with the school bus waving and the Swedish Chef cheering, there’s positive change, and I’m cautiously hopeful of more.

It’s not all forward momentum, though. I heard the boys screaming at each other last week. When I went to investigate, I found Drake on his top bunk yelling, and Guppy wailing on the floor.

“What happened?” I asked.

“GUPPY WANTED THE FIREMAN. I COULDN’T FIND IT. I THREW BEAR.”

Translation: Guppy asked Drake for the fireman toy. Drake couldn’t find it. Guppy started to cry, which irritated Drake, who threw a teddy bear at him in anger, which made Guppy cry more.

I quickly located the fireman, admonished Drake for making things worse, and they both quieted down.

On a recent night I was making dinner, while the boys played on the back porch. I glanced out and noticed Drake throwing something into the back yard. I opened the porch door, and saw a pile of hair. Drake had decided he and Guppy needed haircuts, so he’d used his scissors. The results, while not terrible, were definitely choppy, and will need to be fixed by a professional.

That still leaves me one hopeful step ahead, though. I’m going to relish this as long as I’m able. And hey, maybe the next event will be a hopeful one too. Or at least amusing, if it’s not.

The article “Birds in Hand” from the March issue of Gourmet intrigued me. Roast two chickens at once, it said, to produce a chicken dinner for four, then use the leftovers for three more meals. Something about this kind of one-stop all-week shopping appeals to the thrifty housewife in me, so I decided to give it a go.

What I didn’t know, though, was that I’d be seeing those chickens for quite some time. My sons, 5yo Drake and 3yo Guppy, are picky, though improving, eaters. So the meals for four sometimes stretched out to lunches and leftovers, as the boys sometimes opted for PBJs, cereal, and other kid-friendly dinner substitutes.

I began with Roast Chicken with Pan Gravy and served Panfried Smashed Potatoes on the side.

I used the leftover roast chicken to make Cheesy Chicken and Mushroom Lasagne. The kids wouldn’t touch it, but G and I devoured it.

Next up were Chicken Gyros with Cucumber Salsa and Tsatsiki. Again the kids were suspicious of such a multi-layered meal, but I thought it was delicious.

With still more roast chicken to use, I made the Chicken Tostadas again. Drake pronounced them, “Spicy, but awesome!” And if you know what kind of eating struggles we’ve had with him, you’ll know I just about broke down and cried.

But I still had leftover chicken and tomato sauce. So I put that over tortilla chips, covered it with cheese, topped it with the leftover iceberg lettuce and radishes for Chicken Nachos, recipe adapted from Cooks Illustrated.

Still not done, I took a last serving of the chicken nachos, heated them up in the cast iron skillet, added in two eggs, and had a Mexican chicken scramble.

After all this, I still had Leftover Roast Chicken Stock to make. I threw in two carcasses and the odds and ends in my veggie bin, then made a Leek and Pea Risotto. The recipe called for calamari. I tried trout instead. Bad call. Better to have skipped the protein entirely.

Then I was done, right? Alas, no. I still had a cup of Pan Gravy from the first recipe. So I heated up a bag of frozen fries, topped them with Wisconsin cheese curds, melted them in the oven, then covered them in gravy to make Poutine, a staple of Canadian diners.

That, my friends, was finally the end of the two roast chickens. Thirteen days. Eight different recipes, nine if you count making the stock. Everything but the trout was good, some things were great. But it was an enormous undertaking, and continually reusing all the food was tiring. It’s not an experience I’ll be repeating anytime soon.

Next up, I think, lots of small, simple, meals that I’ll try to make both veggie based and kid to friendly. Yeah, those aren’t mutually incompatible, are they? I can but try.

A recent reading of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s newest installment in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series, 1910, sent me scurrying back to the beginning, volume 1. It’s a fabulous re-read, because it’s so dense with lit-geek references that I’m sure I still missed many on this, my third or fourth time through it.

A strong willed woman with a mysterious past, an ex-adventurer with an opium habit, a psychopathic invisible man–all report to a man named Bond, who works for a mysterious “M”.

Mr. Quartermain? My name is Wilhelmina Murray. Your country has need of you again, sir.

Go away.

Sir, I had heard better of you. Is there nothing left of what you were? … I see. Then may the good lord help the empire, sir, if there are no men finer than yourself… to guard her?

Mayhem soon follows. There are more favorite Victorian characters here than you can shake a stick at. Not only is it fun to read, but it also makes me want to have another go at the source material. It was this series that first spurred me to tackle Gulliver’s Travels, Wells’ Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and more. I enjoyed the series, and it made me eager to read more, and to learn more. Not many books can do that, eh?

I could have guessed what would happen. When I picked up League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1910, I couldn’t get my bearings. The series, formerly at DC, was now published by Top Shelf Productions. When I started to read, I wondered, who was this character? What happened to that one? Was I confused because I’d forgotten things from an earlier storyline? Were things murky on purpose? My best guess: it’s some of both.

When I read 1910 in its entirety, including the prose end-story, more of it made sense. Like its predecessors, 1910 is a dark, entertaining romp with characters from famous Victorian literature. Many of the references I got (Virginia Woolf’s ambisexual Orlando); I’m sure more sailed over my head (Mack the Knife and Pirate Jenny were two I looked up later).

Mina Murray, Allan Quatermain, Jr., and colleagues are in pursuit of an occult group up to no good. Meanwhile, a young Indian woman defies her father and strikes out on her own. Stories collide in a spectacular way, accompanied by a duet commentary from two other characters. It’s interesting, with many plots left dangling, which certainly makes me eager for the next installment of what is to be a trilogy.

Till then, though, I’ll reread the earlier series, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, vol. 1.

From Top 10: Season Two issue 4, by Zander Cannon and Gene Ha. Top 10 is a comic book set in a world in which everyone has superpowers. The book has often been described as a mash up of NYPD Blue and superheroes.

In a scene from issue four, therapist Dr. M. Gautama to police officer Irma Wornow, aka Irma Geddon:

1. Life sucks
2. It sucks because you want everything to LAST, and it never DOES.
3. And the one thing that would make you a lot HAPPIER about this world…is if you just stopped caring.

Tough talk from a therapist, but amusing because the police therapist is a pipe-smoking buddha. He’s trying to teach Irma the first three of the Four Noble Truths, which were phrased differently when I learned them at school:

1. All of life is dukkha (which reductively translates as suffering).
2. Dukkha is caused by desire.
3. To cut the cord of dukkha, cut the cord of desire.

This scene is a perfect example of the state of the art of comics today: smart, funny, and multi-layered. Top Ten is one of my favorite comics; check it out if you haven’t yet.

Were you wondering what the fourth noble truth is?

4. Follow the Noble Eightfold Path

Me: [snicker]

My husband, G. Grod: What’s so funny?

Me: A good line that mixes Austen and the Fantastic Four.

[Repeat. Repeat.]

Later:

5yo Drake: Mom, please take that book back to Big Brain!

Me: Why?

Drake: It’s UGLY!

If he thought the cover was ugly, I wasn’t going to show him the inside. In Fantastic Four: True Story, the FF jump into the world of fiction to save the world at large. The villain is so similar in looks and domain that he’d better be an homage to Neil Gaiman’s Morpheus, or lawyers are likely to be involved. This is a fun, funny story that borrows its theme from Jasper FForde’s Thursday Next series and delves into Sense and Sensibility, Last of the Mohicans, Ivanhoe, and more. Not only are there clever mash-ups of literature and comic book conventions, there are several meta moments when the FF are confronted as characters of fiction as well.

It is not good enough, though, to compensate for the terrible art. It’s clumsy, rushed-looking, and for the second half I couldn’t tell the difference between Sue Richards and the elder Dashwood sisters. This story is a lark for fans of FForde, Austen and other authors referenced in the book. But the art and story never connect in a memorable way. Disposable fun.

I was talking to a movie-phile friend last week. “We just watched Terminator 2 again,” I said. “It was _awesome_” He laughed.

“What?” I asked. “Are you disagreeing that it’s awesome?”

“No,” he said, “It’s just that I probably haven’t heard anyone that excited about it since 1991.”

He was right. I’d completely forgotten how thrilling the story, how groundbreaking the special effects, and how bad ass Sarah Connor was. Nominated for six Oscars, it won four. Yeah, the story drags a bit toward the end. But that’s easy to forgive, in the face of the rest of it.

John Connor: Does it hurt when you get shot?

The Terminator: I sense injuries. The data could be called “pain.”

If you’ve forgotten how good those original Terminator movies were, your challenge is to rent Terminator and T2 and watch them. Then I bet you’ll be joining me next weekend to see if Terminator: Salvation can bring back this franchise.

Picking picture books for kids can be hit or miss–the art’s good, but the story’s not, or vice versa. The text is too simple, or too long for my 3- and 5yo boys. I like it; they don’t. Or worse, they demand it and I groan. Inwardly, usually. But we’ve had some good successes recently, which makes happy readers, and listeners of us all.

Harry Hungry by Steven Salerno is about a baby whose appetite grows, literally, out of control. Salerno’s retro illustrations, and the fanciful images of baby Harry eating ever-larger items, are delightful visuals to accompany a pleasantly simple text:

Harry headed outside. He ate the flower bed. He ate the garden hose. He munched the mailbox!

Salerno’s bio says he’s a graduate of Parsons School of Design. His design background is clear in this cool, funny, attractive book.

David Lucas’ Robot and the Bluebird is more lovely than cool. A broken robot and a homeless bluebird become friends, and give each other things the other needs. It’s a timeless story, made fresh with Lucas’ sweet but not saccharine story and pictures.

Leslie Patricelli is a longtime favorite in our house. I’ve read her board books, like Quiet Loud, countless times, yet didn’t tire of them. Her new picture book, Higher! Higher!, is very like the board books. A girl goes to the park with her dad and asks him to push her on the swing. She goes higher and higher, and the illustrations show this fantasy taken to its nth degree. Loyal readers will recognize other Patricelli characters, like the baby and the dog. The book has only a handful of words beyond those of the title, but there’s much to see, and charm, in the acrylic-painted pages.

Emily Gravett’s art, in The Odd Egg, is a fetching combination of pencil and watercolor.

All the birds had laid an egg.

All except for Duck.

Duck’s lack of egg isn’t hard for a grownup reader to figure out; Duck’s a he, not a she. So he finds an egg–a big, beautiful speckled one.

The other birds’ eggs hatch one by one in sequentially wider pages. Duck’s, though, does not. Until…

I won’t give away the ending. It’s a clever one, and funny. Duck’s not the one with the last laugh; it’s us, the readers.

All the books above received multiple readings this week. I wonder if part of their appeal, both to the boys and to me, is that they’re by author/illustrators. In music I tend to favor singer/songwriters, and I suspect the same bias in many of the books we like.

Sticky Burr: Adventures in Burrwood Forest by John Lechner, published by Candlewick Press, is another gem of a graphic novel-ish book for kids. I discovered it in the increasingly well-stocked shelves in the kids section at my comic store.

Sticky is an iconoclast in the burr community. He doesn’t like to prickle, he prefers music and problem-solving, to the annoyance of his nemesis, Scurvy Burr. Scurvy tries to get Sticky kicked out of the village and wacky adventures ensue. Danger! Romance! Music! Heroics! Plus really cute art and laugh-out-loud moments. The art, humor and style reminded me pleasantly of the Doreen Cronin and Harry Bliss “Diary of” picture books: Worm, Spider and Fly. This was a joy to read, and was requested repeatedly by my sons 5yo Drake and 3yo Guppy.

Good news! There are more Sticky Burr adventures online. Sticky has his own website, as does the author, John Lechner. Also, a sequel is due this September!

Otto’s Orange Day is another outstanding selection from Toon Books, a new line of graphic novel-ish books for kids. The line has solid artistic cred. It’s part of Little Lit, a division of RAW Junior, founded by Art Spiegelman, the creator of Maus.

Otto’s Orange Day, with three chapters and forty pages, is about a kitten who learns the hard way to be careful what to wish for after his favorite aunt sends him a dusty lamp. The particulars, and their depictions, are funny and silly, even as there’s a hint of deeper, darker things that older kids might pick up on. And Otto bears more than a passing resemblance, both in looks and behavior, to another beloved comic character, Calvin.

The book is available in both hard and soft cover. Both editions have thick paper, sturdy bindings, and attractive covers. My sons, 5yo Drake and 3yo Guppy, both loved this book and asked for it repeatedly, as they have with other Toon Books like Luke on the Loose and Stinky, which I wrote about previously. As a comic-book loving mom, I’m thrilled at the expanded selection of comics for kids, like the Toon Books.

I wasn’t able to read Unaccustomed Earth during the Morning News Tournament of Books this year; the reserve queue for it was too long at my library. Interestingly, the book didn’t fare well in the competition, though every judge only had good things to say about it. Having read it myself, I’m surprised at its poor performance; this is an engaging, well-written book of short stories, three of them linked.

Lahiri’s characters tend to be Bengali-Americans in relationships with non-Bengalis. Her writing has an emotional resonance that crosses cultures, generations and continents. Her characters are complex, and I found it easy to sympathize and empathize with them, even those whose circumstances were worlds away from mine. But as Lahiri’s stories ably demonstrate, experiences aren’t as disparate as some might think. A few passages in the book gave me that creepy, someone’s-been-looking-over-my-shoulder feeling, as they detailed unattractive emotions and feelings often left unsaid:

Wasn’t it since his [second child's] birth that so much of his and Megan’s energy was devoted not to doing things together but devising ways so that each could have some time alone, she taking the girls so that he could go running in the park on her days off, or vice versa, so that she could browse in a bookstore or get her nails done? And wasn’t it terrible, how sometimes even a ride by himself on the subway was the best part of the day? Wasn’t it terrible that after all the work one put into finding a person to spend one’s life with, after making a family with that person, even in spite of missing that person, as Amit missed Megan night after night, that solitude was what one relished most, the only thing that, even in fleeting, diminished doses, kept one sane?

I enjoyed and admired these stories, even as they sometimes brought pain and sadness. The ending reminded me strongly of another novel, A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, and made me curious if there might be a reason for the similarities. I’m certainly interested in reading both of Lahiri’s previous books, The Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake.

We had dinner at a friend’s house recently, and she served smashed potatoes from a recipe in a recent issue of Gourmet magazine. I’ve subscribed to Gourmet magazine at two points. The first when I was just learning to cook in the early 90’s, and again when Ruth Reichl took over as editor, in 2000. I liked the magazine, but after a two year subscription the first time and one year the second, I felt I’d had enough. The trouble of a monthly magazine, of reading it, testing recipes, was more burdensome than the recipes were good. Since I also subscribed to Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country at the time, I was fine with giving up Gourmet. (I’ve given up on Cook’s in the meantime; their overzealous solicitations did me in.)

Yet my friend’s potatoes were simple and delicious, so I thought I’d check out Gourmet again. My local library has it, so I checked out a few issues. Once I began to page through them, I found myself marking a very high number of recipes I’d like to try, many of which were simple, yet didn’t seem to skimp on quality ingredients and taste. It’s been several weeks, and several different issues, and I’m once again a fan of Gourmet. It has some great articles, like recent ones by Amy Bloom on Italian food, and Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl on little known treasures of the St. Croix River Valley in the WI/MN area (not available online). And it has a great selection of recipes, from simple to complex, from everyday to special occasion, that are well-written and turn out well.

A few of my family’s favorites have been Butterscotch Pudding, Chicken Tostadas, and Lasagna Bolognese with Spinach. I’m going to keep checking out the magazine from the library, rather than committing to a subscription of my own. Apparently it’s time for my once a decade go-round with Gourmet. Maybe it’ll last, this time.

Back when I lived on the east coast of the US, I had a ritual when I visited NYC. I’d stop in Hudson News after I got off the train, buy a can of Dry Grape Schweppes and the New York edition of the New York Times, two things I loved and couldn’t find anywhere else. I did the same thing before I got on the train home. Then I moved across country, and visit the east coast much more rarely. During that time, Dry Grape Schweppes has gotten even harder to find. Hudson News no longer carries it. Grocery stores might, but I have a hard time seeing myself hauling around a 2L bottle on a day trip to the city.

I was reminded of this loss recently when I did a google search for a lip balm, and saw there was a Dry Grape Schweppes flavor. I Googled the soda, and saw that it was still available, but only in very limited areas in the Northeast US. Instead of going through mail-order shenanigans, my usual MO when a strange craving like this arises, I decided to craft a facsimile. I bought a 2L bottle of Canada Dry (which I prefer to Schweppes as a not-that-gingery ginger ale; in general I like my ginger ale very strong, like Natural Brew’s) and some grape soda. I used Blue Sky’s Natural Grape Soda. I mixed them in a glass. Voila. Grape ginger ale. Right here in my zip code.

From Nicholas Taleb’s Black Swan, about Umberto Eco’s home library:

Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight read-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.*

My friend Jack, who blogs at Knowledge Volt, sent me the link, from Matthew Cornell, in response to my guilt over book-buying binges. In keeping with the antilibrary, my trips last week to Half Price Books and Barnes and Noble in St. Louis Park:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (Oxford World Classics mini HC edition)

Terminator 2 dvd

Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin (spiffy vintage-look Penguin cover)

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Laura by Vera Caspary

China Mountain Zhang (gave our copy away years ago)

Curly Girl by Lorraine Massey (my own copy, since the one I have is from the library)

For the kids:

Starting School by Janet and Allan Ahlberg

Three Scooby Doo easy readers

The Firefighters Busy Day by Richard Scarry

Noisy Nora by Rosemary Wells

Sammy the Seal by Syd Hoff

It’s My Birthday by Helen Oxenbury

Anatole and the Cat by Eve Titus

I put the books on top of our built-in buffet, near the ceiling. My 5yo son Drake was so eager to get his hands on them that I barely got that photo taken before he started climbing, and dismantled the display:

Here’s 3yo Guppy, who can’t yet read, asleep on Sammy the Seal. Perhaps any book they can’t yet read themselves is part of the boys’ antilibrary.

For Mother’s Day, I de-crapified our back bedroom and unblocked the door to the closet/my office, which has been variously blocked over the past three years by a glider, crib, and changing table. I dusted, re-arranged, and brought order out of chaos.

This is the back room, which I envision as a reading room:

And the closet office:

The other side:

It’s small. It’s a closet. But it’s clean and well lighted. I’m reclaiming it.

It’s mine.

Spoon, written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrated by Scott Magoon, is a good example of an age-old story made fresh again with new details and engaging art. Little spoon has always been a happy utensil, until he feels like friends fork and knife get to have all the fun.

And Fork, Fork is so lucky! She gets to go practically EVERYWHERE. I bet she never goes stir-crazy like I do.

His friends respond, though, with what spoon can do that they can’t. The art expands on the text and makes it even funnier, and the ending is utterly charming.

I’m sure we’ve read several books with a similar theme, but the one that comes to mind is Lucky Little Duck, which I could hardly stand to read to my kids. The art was kitschy, and the story saccharine and unsubtle. That was a dud; Spoon is a winner.

A picture book for young readers, Matthew McElligott’s Bean Thirteen is that wonderful book that kids can enjoy on one level, and adults on another. Insect friends Ralph and Flora are picking beans for dinner when Ralph tells Flora not to pick a thirteenth bean. She does, and trouble ensues because they can’t find a way to divide the beans up evenly.

“Oh look,” said Flora, “there’s one left over. You take it, Ralph.”

“Bean thirteen?” gasped Ralph. “Never! It’s bad luck.”

“Ralph,” said Flora, “please don’t make such a fuss.”

“I’m not eating it,” said Ralph, “and you can’t make me.”

They begin inviting friends over, and Ralph continues to disparage the thirteenth bean. Eventually the beans get eaten, and the story works on multiple levels–it can be about division, prime numbers, sharing, and friendship. It also has lots of good kid dialogue that may cause parents to smile wryly in recognition. McElligott’s illustrations are colorful and inviting, and the beans look like edamame, which might be a good introduction to that snack for kids who haven’t yet tried it. My husband, my 5yo and 3yo sons, and I all really liked this one.

Zafon’s Shadow of the Wind, in hardcover, has been sitting on my shelf since I borrowed it from my mother-in-law several years ago. I suggested it for my book group, thinking that would force me to read it; I’m very persuaded by deadlines. But since I lost my reading mojo in the last few months, I didn’t finish in time for our meeting. We still had a good discussion, and overall enjoyed the book. And, I did finish it, finally.

A young boy named Daniel comes across a rare book in post-WWII Barcelona. He loves the book, and when he tries to find out more about the author, Julian Carax, discovers a mystery that will engage him for the next ten years. This book is a heady mix of horror, intrigue, romance, coming-of-age, and bibliophilia. I enjoyed it, but didn’t love it, perhaps because of the role of women in the book. They served mostly as objects of desire to motivate the men in the story.

That afternoon of mist and drizzle, Clara Barcelo stole my heart, my breath, and my sleep. In the haunted shade of the Ateneo, her hands wrote a curse on my skin that wasn’t to be broken for years. While I stared, enraptured, she explained how she, too, had stumbled on the work of Julian Carax by chance in a village in Provence.

This book reminded me strongly of The Thirteenth Tale, also a mystery from the past that encompasses romance, murder, and love of books. That, though, was told from a woman’s point of view, and seemed to me a “girly” counterpart to this, which I felt was a “boy” book by Zafon.

This week’s selection in Take Up Production’s “First, You Need a Crime” series was Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, which I’d never seen. It’s one of his earlier films, in black and white, and before his penchant for tormenting icy blonds turned into a fetish. Farley Granger is Guy Haines, a handsome, famous young tennis player approached by the garrulous Bruno on a train. Haines has marriage trouble; Bruno has some deep and abiding father issues and tells Haines he’d like to swap murders with him. Haines is understandably put off, and politely hurries away. Bruno, though, won’t be dissuaded.

The movie is full of fascinating, funny, creepy and disturbing stuff. Raymond Chandler worked on the screenplay, based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith. Hitchcock’s daughter Patricia is Barbara, who has some of the best lines and takes on the role of girl detective.

Senator Morton: Poor unfortunate girl.
Barbara Morton: She was a tramp.
Senator Morton: She was a human being. Let me remind you that even the most unworthy of us has a right to life and the pursuit of happiness.
Barbara Morton: From what I hear she pursued it in all directions.

Girls who wear glasses don’t have a good time of it, though. There are several iconic images, such as one of the crowd at a tennis match, a reflection in eyeglasses, and a merry-go-round scene that makes my eyes widen and jaw drop even in memory. There’s subtext on social and political power, and of homosexuality. This is a great Hitchcock film, and one I’m glad I got to see on film in a theater.

IMDB lists a remake slated for 2011, but a Google search turned up paltry evidence, so let’s hope it just goes away.

Top American designer Michael Kors shared a dozen pieces of style advice in “Secrets of Style for Right Now” from the April Issue of In Style magazine. It avoids the “r” word for the economy, but subtly advocates versatility and common sense for shopping in hard times. Tips include: Buy clothes that can be worn throughout the year. Beware indulgence on trends. Instead, focus on the best basics you can afford. If you splurge, do it on a sure thing like a great trench coat, or a fabulous item like gorgeous sandals that won’t get dated. Link to full text of article is from The Butlers Front Porch. If you’re able, try to get your hands on the magazine for the real article. The Kors items used to illustrate the points are striking and lovely.