Donald Sinclair was one of the more beloved characters in 20th century literature. His business partner wrote a series of short stories about his own life, which was closely entwined with that of Sinclair. Those stories became books, the books became a movie & the movie grew to become one of the most successful book2television adaptations, well, ever.
& one of the highlights of the books & the programs was the author's interactions with Sinclair himself. The man was famously eccentric & generous & much beloved. Sinclair was so insulted he considered this characterization the biggest test of their friendship, but he did manage to put it behind him insisting that the writing was exaggerated. Others however, including the author's son (who later joined the same firm, so in addition to knowing Sinclair all of his life, he was able to interact with Sinclair much as his father had), said that the character was toned down because Sinclair was so extreme he would not have been believable. In a different sort of twist, Sinclair became good friends with the actor who portrayed him, despite his belief that the portrayal was over the top.
Sinclair was born today in 1911. Like I said, he had a career, was made famous by his business partner's literary portrayal of him, but other wise lived if not a quiet ordinary life, certainly a life without fanfare. His first wife died, something not particular well known as it happened before his famous partnership, but he & his second wife were married for more than 50 years. He tried to become a pilot in World War II, but through a series of...you know what, it doesn't really matter why, he never did. Because his profession in private life was considered vital to the stability of the country, he was returned home without seeing combat.
His younger brother, also a "character" died about four years before Sinclair did, then that same business partner died & less than four months later his wife died. Two weeks after that, Donald Sinclair deliberately overdosed. He was 84 years old.
What did Donald do? He gave us the gift of himself, warts & all. We know him as Siegfried Farnon.
Showing posts with label book2movie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book2movie. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Saturday, April 20, 2013
This week at the ranch, uselessly
It has been stooped-crazy-busy here at Useless Ranch this week. So busy I found out about the Boston Marathon bombing Tuesday morning. I learned they had pictures of the suspects after the first one was already dead. & I still say Lucky Me.
Other things that occupied my time this week:
The donkey did some damage to one of his hooves last weekend. Our farrier was sweating, dizzy, barfing sick for what might be the second time EVER in 10+ years & could not get out here until Friday. This means that every day, several times a day I was walking water to him where ever he was; I did not want him getting dehydrated because he did not have what it takes to shove in at the water trough.
We have had a small cold front which coincided with a lot of rain, so four baby birds were back in my bathtub. Maybe I was over reacting, but one in particular was looking a bit glazed, pecking lethargically & why wait until she is too weak to stand?
I have also spent a rather extraordinary amount of time on the phone due to a family event elsewhere. During those conversations I also learned my parents are wallpapering their bedroom, which I guess is their prerogative, but I actually liked the old wallpaper & I NEVER like wallpaper. On the other hand, the mish-mosh of linoleum-thru-the-ages that comprises their kitchen floor remains untouched, especially since I told my mother I am 99.9% sure one of their linoleums is the same as the one in the kitchen of the Marjorie Kinnan Rawling's house.
I finished several books:
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn. This is the second Flynn book I have read, but I think it was the first she wrote...? All I can say is YIKES.
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, translated by Alison Anderson. This is my bookclub's May 2013 selection & I have really wanted to read it for awhile (but never had the time, OY). The movie was at the local theatre-that-shows-not-so-much-mainstream-movies over a year ago, so I knew what happened. Still a great book, even though I knew the ending.
Garment of Shadows by Laurie R. King. Not the best of the Russell/Holmes series but I still enjoyed it. What will those crazy kids get up to next?
If this seems like a lot of book for one week, keep in mind the first two were audio, so I listened while I did stuff in the house I listened while I ran errands, I listened while I sat & had a cup of coffee when the rest of the country was watching CNN/Fox/MSNBC et al.
& now I have some work to do, as the cool temps & rainy weather has meant:
The return of the nettle, a noxious unpleasant stinging plant that I have become somewhat immune to much in the way a clownfish does a sea anemone. For much the same reason, I am sorry to say as for all intents & purposes I make my home in a bank of stinging nettle.
Early roses! One of the bushes I planted less than a year ago is covered in blooms & most of the others are pushing buds. It looked like we were going straight from a muddy Fladidah winter to the steamy broil of summer, but we have doubled back for a weekend of spring.
Other things that occupied my time this week:
The donkey did some damage to one of his hooves last weekend. Our farrier was sweating, dizzy, barfing sick for what might be the second time EVER in 10+ years & could not get out here until Friday. This means that every day, several times a day I was walking water to him where ever he was; I did not want him getting dehydrated because he did not have what it takes to shove in at the water trough.
We have had a small cold front which coincided with a lot of rain, so four baby birds were back in my bathtub. Maybe I was over reacting, but one in particular was looking a bit glazed, pecking lethargically & why wait until she is too weak to stand?
I have also spent a rather extraordinary amount of time on the phone due to a family event elsewhere. During those conversations I also learned my parents are wallpapering their bedroom, which I guess is their prerogative, but I actually liked the old wallpaper & I NEVER like wallpaper. On the other hand, the mish-mosh of linoleum-thru-the-ages that comprises their kitchen floor remains untouched, especially since I told my mother I am 99.9% sure one of their linoleums is the same as the one in the kitchen of the Marjorie Kinnan Rawling's house.
I finished several books:
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn. This is the second Flynn book I have read, but I think it was the first she wrote...? All I can say is YIKES.
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, translated by Alison Anderson. This is my bookclub's May 2013 selection & I have really wanted to read it for awhile (but never had the time, OY). The movie was at the local theatre-that-shows-not-so-much-mainstream-movies over a year ago, so I knew what happened. Still a great book, even though I knew the ending.
Garment of Shadows by Laurie R. King. Not the best of the Russell/Holmes series but I still enjoyed it. What will those crazy kids get up to next?
If this seems like a lot of book for one week, keep in mind the first two were audio, so I listened while I did stuff in the house I listened while I ran errands, I listened while I sat & had a cup of coffee when the rest of the country was watching CNN/Fox/MSNBC et al.
& now I have some work to do, as the cool temps & rainy weather has meant:
The return of the nettle, a noxious unpleasant stinging plant that I have become somewhat immune to much in the way a clownfish does a sea anemone. For much the same reason, I am sorry to say as for all intents & purposes I make my home in a bank of stinging nettle.
Early roses! One of the bushes I planted less than a year ago is covered in blooms & most of the others are pushing buds. It looked like we were going straight from a muddy Fladidah winter to the steamy broil of summer, but we have doubled back for a weekend of spring.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
What would Arthur do?
Every few years I am forcibly reminded they no longer teach The Crucible in high school english class.This rather astonishes me on so many levels: Arthur Miller was an american playwright, writing about an event in american history that had strong tie-ins to what was at the time of writing american current events. Also, even though there was already a french film version, they made it into a movie with Winona Ryder & Daniel Day-Lewis & it has been my sad experience that some english teachers like to set up a movie JUST IN CASE someone in class could not be bothered to find the crib notes. Also, in the case of one friend's english teacher it meant she (the teacher) could nap peacefully in the dark while the kids are more or less occupied; I LOVE teachers but there are a few bad apples in there. Or maybe they are just tired. It has been a long, ugly haul for teachers here in Fladidah.
The american movie is not bad, actually. It takes a few side roads from the play, mostly because it can (a change of scenery does a body good after all & just imagine a movie that remained set in what a stage could manage in scene changes). If you are someone who does not much care for reading plays (it is a learned skill & even then you may not develop a taste for it), go ahead & watch the movie. Netflix even has it on Instant View in time for the Hallowe'en season, & really what is scarier than Salem witches at Hallowe'en? Turns out the day-to-day Salem townsfolk are pretty damn frightening themselves.
The gist of The Crucible in a paragraph is this: for a variety of motives, the best of them being religious zealotry, the people of a village start accusing each other of witchcraft. Once accused, you are more or less condemned....unless.....you can give the people accusing you another name. Doesn't even have to be all that plausible; just say "yes, but I was lured & so-&-so lured me". You will get a slap on the wrist, lose your property (maybe) & be shamed & ostracized (becoming a member of a group almost as large as said village, so that's not so bad, really). Then of course you have to live with yourself, forever after, knowing that you are responsible for whatever happens to the next person. & the next. & the next.
If it all sounds a bit familiar, it was meant to. When The Crucible was written, the Salem Witch Trials were common knowledge. So was McCarthyism, whereby people were called up before a senate committee, accused of Communism & sentenced to jail, blacklisted, whatever. Pretty much the only way to ease your situation was to say "yes, but I was lured; so-&-so lured me". Some people resisted & their lives were ruined, Pete Seeger famously resisted & his life sure looked like ruined for a few years, but he who laughs last & all that. I suspect few people on this earth will ever laugh so completely as Pete Seeger, in a completely not-malicious, laugh-along-with-me kind of way.
Late in their cycle, when the popularity wheel was rolling away from them, the McCarthy-ites turned their attention to Arthur Miller. He was, at the time, married to Marilyn Monroe & most historians agree the accusation was almost certainly a ploy to grab some headlines rather than a sincere attempt to isolate the most dangerous communist in the country. Unfortunately (depending on your perspective), Miller's response to the McCarthy spotlight was to write the most damning criticism of the work of the committee. Double unlucky, it is one of the most famous pieces of writing in our american history (it lives right up there with a few others some people spend a lot of time misquoting). The Crucible has long held the distinction of being the most widely read & performed american play outside of this country. It is all so interesting (truly) & you can find whole volumes on the subject; you can take classes on the struggle between Arthur Miller & Joseph McCarthy, on the widely predicted & very very wrong death of Death of a Salesman as a result of McCarthy et al. But enough about Arthur Miller, lets talk for a bit about Lance Armstrong.
Earlier this month, Lance Armstrong said (I paraphrase) "I am sick of fighting it, I have a life to live. You want my Tour de France wins back? Take 'em". For those who don't know, Armstrong has been denying allegations of doping for years. It's interesting they keep coming back, in light of the complete lack of medical evidence etc. I am not saying he wasn't doping, although as a reader of The Crucible I cannot help but wonder. Particularly as his most ardent accusers have been other athletes who have actually been caught & then parlayed an easing of their punishment if only they can bring in the big fish. I think Brit Hammond said it best: "To me it says if you cheat and lie about it for several years, and then drop somebody else in it, you'll be alright".
Which brings us back around to what Arthur has done. He has told us more about our system of justice than maybe we want to know, not because it is so awful but because it is so universally human.
The american movie is not bad, actually. It takes a few side roads from the play, mostly because it can (a change of scenery does a body good after all & just imagine a movie that remained set in what a stage could manage in scene changes). If you are someone who does not much care for reading plays (it is a learned skill & even then you may not develop a taste for it), go ahead & watch the movie. Netflix even has it on Instant View in time for the Hallowe'en season, & really what is scarier than Salem witches at Hallowe'en? Turns out the day-to-day Salem townsfolk are pretty damn frightening themselves.
The gist of The Crucible in a paragraph is this: for a variety of motives, the best of them being religious zealotry, the people of a village start accusing each other of witchcraft. Once accused, you are more or less condemned....unless.....you can give the people accusing you another name. Doesn't even have to be all that plausible; just say "yes, but I was lured & so-&-so lured me". You will get a slap on the wrist, lose your property (maybe) & be shamed & ostracized (becoming a member of a group almost as large as said village, so that's not so bad, really). Then of course you have to live with yourself, forever after, knowing that you are responsible for whatever happens to the next person. & the next. & the next.
If it all sounds a bit familiar, it was meant to. When The Crucible was written, the Salem Witch Trials were common knowledge. So was McCarthyism, whereby people were called up before a senate committee, accused of Communism & sentenced to jail, blacklisted, whatever. Pretty much the only way to ease your situation was to say "yes, but I was lured; so-&-so lured me". Some people resisted & their lives were ruined, Pete Seeger famously resisted & his life sure looked like ruined for a few years, but he who laughs last & all that. I suspect few people on this earth will ever laugh so completely as Pete Seeger, in a completely not-malicious, laugh-along-with-me kind of way.
Late in their cycle, when the popularity wheel was rolling away from them, the McCarthy-ites turned their attention to Arthur Miller. He was, at the time, married to Marilyn Monroe & most historians agree the accusation was almost certainly a ploy to grab some headlines rather than a sincere attempt to isolate the most dangerous communist in the country. Unfortunately (depending on your perspective), Miller's response to the McCarthy spotlight was to write the most damning criticism of the work of the committee. Double unlucky, it is one of the most famous pieces of writing in our american history (it lives right up there with a few others some people spend a lot of time misquoting). The Crucible has long held the distinction of being the most widely read & performed american play outside of this country. It is all so interesting (truly) & you can find whole volumes on the subject; you can take classes on the struggle between Arthur Miller & Joseph McCarthy, on the widely predicted & very very wrong death of Death of a Salesman as a result of McCarthy et al. But enough about Arthur Miller, lets talk for a bit about Lance Armstrong.
Earlier this month, Lance Armstrong said (I paraphrase) "I am sick of fighting it, I have a life to live. You want my Tour de France wins back? Take 'em". For those who don't know, Armstrong has been denying allegations of doping for years. It's interesting they keep coming back, in light of the complete lack of medical evidence etc. I am not saying he wasn't doping, although as a reader of The Crucible I cannot help but wonder. Particularly as his most ardent accusers have been other athletes who have actually been caught & then parlayed an easing of their punishment if only they can bring in the big fish. I think Brit Hammond said it best: "To me it says if you cheat and lie about it for several years, and then drop somebody else in it, you'll be alright".
Which brings us back around to what Arthur has done. He has told us more about our system of justice than maybe we want to know, not because it is so awful but because it is so universally human.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Lost city of readers
I need another bookclub like I need another....quilt block swap. Speaking of which, is any one else pressed up against the glass over at Block Lotto? Maybe it is the stars aligning -yes, I am sure that is what it is- but their September lotto block is very similar to our October swap block. It kinda makes me want to make a funky stonehenge just to commemorate the moment.
What was I saying? Oh yea, bookclub. Tonight is the first meeting I attended of the museum volunteers bookclub. I will not be attending the October meeting, because I already have plans that night, & I am well & truly up in the air about any after that. It would depend on the book list, which was a well kept secret. I went in knowing only the first two books, The Lost City of Z & The Philosopher Fish.
While they look like good choices from the variety of natural history perspective (it is a natural history museum bookclub, after all), both of these books are approximately 330 pages. That is kind of a lot for one month's reading. I read more than almost anyone I know & I always did & I would have trouble shoehorning 330 more pages into my month.
Neither of them is all that easy to get a hold of either, unless I am prepared to buy a copy, which I am not. Our local library owns just one copy of The Philosopher Fish. I put it on hold the moment I knew what the second book would be. I am number one out of five, which means the person who has the book now can keep it for 30 days, & then I can (but I won't) & so forth. I think it is probable another four people who would like to read this book for the October meeting won't be able to, at least not via the library. That every single copy of The Lost City of Z the library owns (both hard copies & audio copies) are all currently checked out does not bode well.
As for the Lost City of Z....it was Okay. I mean, I don't consider the time I spent listening to it (yes, I got it on disc from the local library) wasted & I put the author's other book on hold. I also learned that Brad Pitt has optioned the book & I would see that movie. I hope they make it with variable endings though, like The French Lieutenant’s Woman. & I am curious how tonight's discussion might go.
What was I saying? Oh yea, bookclub. Tonight is the first meeting I attended of the museum volunteers bookclub. I will not be attending the October meeting, because I already have plans that night, & I am well & truly up in the air about any after that. It would depend on the book list, which was a well kept secret. I went in knowing only the first two books, The Lost City of Z & The Philosopher Fish.
While they look like good choices from the variety of natural history perspective (it is a natural history museum bookclub, after all), both of these books are approximately 330 pages. That is kind of a lot for one month's reading. I read more than almost anyone I know & I always did & I would have trouble shoehorning 330 more pages into my month.
Neither of them is all that easy to get a hold of either, unless I am prepared to buy a copy, which I am not. Our local library owns just one copy of The Philosopher Fish. I put it on hold the moment I knew what the second book would be. I am number one out of five, which means the person who has the book now can keep it for 30 days, & then I can (but I won't) & so forth. I think it is probable another four people who would like to read this book for the October meeting won't be able to, at least not via the library. That every single copy of The Lost City of Z the library owns (both hard copies & audio copies) are all currently checked out does not bode well.
As for the Lost City of Z....it was Okay. I mean, I don't consider the time I spent listening to it (yes, I got it on disc from the local library) wasted & I put the author's other book on hold. I also learned that Brad Pitt has optioned the book & I would see that movie. I hope they make it with variable endings though, like The French Lieutenant’s Woman. & I am curious how tonight's discussion might go.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Two book reviews in one, sorta
A while ago (a year ago?) A***** brought a book suggestion to bookclub that we did not pick. We don't pick most of the suggestions made but is was such a big book, by that I mean so much hype that I 1) thought it was likely to be suggested again & 2) was curious. So I got it on disc from the library & listened while working on a quilt. The book was Eat Pray Love & boy did it suck. I listened to the WHOLE THING asking myself "really, this is what speaks to women"?
& not just any women, women who have a few years & a few years of marriage on them, women who have reached personal crossroads & made the decision "I don't want that, I do want this" more than once (because those decisions are never final until they are no longer your's to make, just so you know). This book was supposed to speak to ME. It did, too. It said consider yourself lucky you were never trapped on a plane with this woman.
Let me tell you who I HAVE been trapped on a plane with: many many fat men one of whom wanted to lift the armrest between us to give himself some breathing room (the others may have wanted to but my arm jammed down on it kept them from trying), more than once I missed a tight connection because I was trapped in a window seat with mama-&-baby-in-her-lap on the aisle (& by the way, if you offer to hold baby so she can get up, into the aisle, take baby back & allow you to get on with your day, she will treat you like a potential kidnapper), just once I was trapped on a plane with an older woman a few rows back across the aisle who saw the dog carrier at my feet move & became convinced the dog securely zipped inside wanted to bite her (actually when the bag first moved she asked the flight attendant if I had a bomb because bombs do that, wiggle around for a while before they explode) & there was the memorable season I traveled on the same schedule between Columbus, Ohio & Jacksonville, Florida with a group of...
Maybe I should just tell that story: I was headed home on Thursday or Friday afternoon & did not notice anything strange until after we were all boarded. Later flights, I made a point of noticing as we boarded & saw that the flight attendant in question & the party of whom I am speaking clearly had issues. In short, they asked many trivial questions, often about the weather, & she pretended they did not exist. This first time, the floor show started with the safety demonstration. Now I pay no real attention to airplane safety demonstrations (although I do count the number of seat backs to my seat & from my seat to the next exit, every time). I do however recognize that the safety demonstration is part of the flight attendant's job & I try to avoid making catcalls, jumping up behind her, making horns with my hands & wagging my butt. I have also never held up a lighter & shouted "Free Bird!" in the middle of the safety demonstration. I am guessing you never have either, but I think you now have an idea what was going on during this particular safety demonstration. Most of the ruckus ended here & this particular flight attendant did not appear in the cabin again. I myself never drink alcohol on flights to keep in top form for kicking the rest of you out of my way en route to the emergency exit, should we need to depart the plane emergency-style, but I learned from my seat-mate that the hospitality cart was unable to serve any passengers alcohol, that there was indeed Never alcohol on This Flight as there had apparently been an Incident. Other flukes of the hospitality cart were a complete inability to stop at particular rows & on one memorable trip a failure to acknowledge a man heading for the restrooms until he offered to pee on the cart itself. Sometimes a few weeks would go by before I crossed paths with these travelers & once or twice I thought I saw just one of them on other flights along this route, but without the hooting & hollering it was hard to say.
Back to the book review, remember the book review? Eat Pray Love was not a favorite with me. The best thing abut it was the discs skipped A LOT which made it kind of rappy (rapesque?). I went on to read Committed & thought even less of it. I have run out of energy for that review though, so I will just paste what I put on GoodReads:
//in A*****;'s defense she had not yet read Eat Pray Love when she recommended it. She has since & well, I think she is also grateful Elizabeth Gilbert no longer travels business class. At least we hope she doesn't.
& not just any women, women who have a few years & a few years of marriage on them, women who have reached personal crossroads & made the decision "I don't want that, I do want this" more than once (because those decisions are never final until they are no longer your's to make, just so you know). This book was supposed to speak to ME. It did, too. It said consider yourself lucky you were never trapped on a plane with this woman.
Let me tell you who I HAVE been trapped on a plane with: many many fat men one of whom wanted to lift the armrest between us to give himself some breathing room (the others may have wanted to but my arm jammed down on it kept them from trying), more than once I missed a tight connection because I was trapped in a window seat with mama-&-baby-in-her-lap on the aisle (& by the way, if you offer to hold baby so she can get up, into the aisle, take baby back & allow you to get on with your day, she will treat you like a potential kidnapper), just once I was trapped on a plane with an older woman a few rows back across the aisle who saw the dog carrier at my feet move & became convinced the dog securely zipped inside wanted to bite her (actually when the bag first moved she asked the flight attendant if I had a bomb because bombs do that, wiggle around for a while before they explode) & there was the memorable season I traveled on the same schedule between Columbus, Ohio & Jacksonville, Florida with a group of...
Maybe I should just tell that story: I was headed home on Thursday or Friday afternoon & did not notice anything strange until after we were all boarded. Later flights, I made a point of noticing as we boarded & saw that the flight attendant in question & the party of whom I am speaking clearly had issues. In short, they asked many trivial questions, often about the weather, & she pretended they did not exist. This first time, the floor show started with the safety demonstration. Now I pay no real attention to airplane safety demonstrations (although I do count the number of seat backs to my seat & from my seat to the next exit, every time). I do however recognize that the safety demonstration is part of the flight attendant's job & I try to avoid making catcalls, jumping up behind her, making horns with my hands & wagging my butt. I have also never held up a lighter & shouted "Free Bird!" in the middle of the safety demonstration. I am guessing you never have either, but I think you now have an idea what was going on during this particular safety demonstration. Most of the ruckus ended here & this particular flight attendant did not appear in the cabin again. I myself never drink alcohol on flights to keep in top form for kicking the rest of you out of my way en route to the emergency exit, should we need to depart the plane emergency-style, but I learned from my seat-mate that the hospitality cart was unable to serve any passengers alcohol, that there was indeed Never alcohol on This Flight as there had apparently been an Incident. Other flukes of the hospitality cart were a complete inability to stop at particular rows & on one memorable trip a failure to acknowledge a man heading for the restrooms until he offered to pee on the cart itself. Sometimes a few weeks would go by before I crossed paths with these travelers & once or twice I thought I saw just one of them on other flights along this route, but without the hooting & hollering it was hard to say.
Back to the book review, remember the book review? Eat Pray Love was not a favorite with me. The best thing abut it was the discs skipped A LOT which made it kind of rappy (rapesque?). I went on to read Committed & thought even less of it. I have run out of energy for that review though, so I will just paste what I put on GoodReads:
Reasonable people have asked why did I read this book when I disliked Eat Pray Love so very very much & this is a reasonable & worthy question. If I were Elizabeth Gilbert I would take an extended vacation slash sojourn to ponder this, bemoaning my ever dwindling funds, with my Brazilian lover (let's call him Darling), internet surfing for books on the topic & having my sister send them out to my hotel rooms (Darling & me, we move around a lot). I would document my inner journey (not to be confused with the outer migration, but I would document that one, too) in a style I am going to call "meandering anecdote".
Alas, I am not Elizabeth Gilbert & all I can say is both books made me think of nothing so much as that scene in Absolutely Fabulous when Saffy gets to the end of her rope & screams at her mother "you cannot become a better person through massage!" & anything that brings back AbFab makes me happy.
Also Committed & Eat Pray Love aggravate me so very much that it helps to raise my heart rate when I am on the elliptical & for that reason alone, it was worth reading (but not buying-your public library has a copy I'm sure).
//in A*****;'s defense she had not yet read Eat Pray Love when she recommended it. She has since & well, I think she is also grateful Elizabeth Gilbert no longer travels business class. At least we hope she doesn't.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
To kill a blood OR In cold mockingbird
I am one of those that reads To Kill a Mockingbird two or three times a decade. There are legion of us.
This year is, of course, the 50th anniversary of its publication. I say "of course" because I really truly do not know what you do with your time if you managed to miss this. Either that or you live on an atoll (either virtually or actually) with no NPR & no public libraries, in which case I am very sorry for you. Please accept my humblest apologies & consider getting out more.
Every Mockingbird landmark (anniversaries, movies based on the book, plays about the book, the decision by British librarians to list it as more vital reading than the Bible -go librarians!), someone always wanders back to Monroeville, Alabama to ask that slacker Harper Lee when she is going to get around to writing her second book. There are only so many ways a southern woman can say "bite me" or "listen asshole, call me once your first book reaches half that acclaim & ask that question & then I will tell you to BITE ME" so she more or less stopped talking about it in 1964. Can you blame her, really?
I once heard Harper Lee described as a recluse & a modern Emily Dickinson & asked a friend of mine (who teaches Mockingbird year in, year out & still loves it) about that. She said if Emily Dickinson managed to stay in college through that first semester, then went on to law school, lived & worked in NYC for a period, actively sought publication, I think you can see where this is going, only then could Harper Lee be said to be anything like Emily Dickinson. I shared with her one of my favorite quotes (James Thurber, of course) in which Thurber compared himself to Salvador Dali. He said his artwork had as much in common with Dali as on old ukulele in an attic has with a piano in a tree, & even then the piano would have to have breasts. We laughed, we are pretentious literary types & that is the kind of thing we laugh at.
Back to the book: ten or so years ago I thought I should maybe expand a bit & when I felt like reading Mockingbird (& sometimes I just DO) I should try try try to read something else first. The natural choice was Truman Capote who, of course, appears in Mockingbird kinda-sorta (again, if you did not know this I am begging you please rethink your day, maybe even just run your errands in a different order). It took a while but I finally worked my way to In Cold Blood.
I know there was recently a movie made about the writing of In Cold Blood (also called In Cold Blood, not to be confused with the 1967 movie called In Cold Blood based on the book In Cold Blood) which I did not see. I planned to see it, at the theater even but a letter from the Shawn brothers in the New Yorker regarding the characterization of their father, who was Truman Capote's editor at the New Yorker made me decide to read the book first. & I did. & maybe you should, too. Because Harper Lee went from writing To Kill a Mockingbird & expecting it to be quite small, to researching this book with her childhood friend & being quite overwhelmed by the impact of her not-so-small book.
This year is, of course, the 50th anniversary of its publication. I say "of course" because I really truly do not know what you do with your time if you managed to miss this. Either that or you live on an atoll (either virtually or actually) with no NPR & no public libraries, in which case I am very sorry for you. Please accept my humblest apologies & consider getting out more.
Every Mockingbird landmark (anniversaries, movies based on the book, plays about the book, the decision by British librarians to list it as more vital reading than the Bible -go librarians!), someone always wanders back to Monroeville, Alabama to ask that slacker Harper Lee when she is going to get around to writing her second book. There are only so many ways a southern woman can say "bite me" or "listen asshole, call me once your first book reaches half that acclaim & ask that question & then I will tell you to BITE ME" so she more or less stopped talking about it in 1964. Can you blame her, really?
I once heard Harper Lee described as a recluse & a modern Emily Dickinson & asked a friend of mine (who teaches Mockingbird year in, year out & still loves it) about that. She said if Emily Dickinson managed to stay in college through that first semester, then went on to law school, lived & worked in NYC for a period, actively sought publication, I think you can see where this is going, only then could Harper Lee be said to be anything like Emily Dickinson. I shared with her one of my favorite quotes (James Thurber, of course) in which Thurber compared himself to Salvador Dali. He said his artwork had as much in common with Dali as on old ukulele in an attic has with a piano in a tree, & even then the piano would have to have breasts. We laughed, we are pretentious literary types & that is the kind of thing we laugh at.
Back to the book: ten or so years ago I thought I should maybe expand a bit & when I felt like reading Mockingbird (& sometimes I just DO) I should try try try to read something else first. The natural choice was Truman Capote who, of course, appears in Mockingbird kinda-sorta (again, if you did not know this I am begging you please rethink your day, maybe even just run your errands in a different order). It took a while but I finally worked my way to In Cold Blood.
I know there was recently a movie made about the writing of In Cold Blood (also called In Cold Blood, not to be confused with the 1967 movie called In Cold Blood based on the book In Cold Blood) which I did not see. I planned to see it, at the theater even but a letter from the Shawn brothers in the New Yorker regarding the characterization of their father, who was Truman Capote's editor at the New Yorker made me decide to read the book first. & I did. & maybe you should, too. Because Harper Lee went from writing To Kill a Mockingbird & expecting it to be quite small, to researching this book with her childhood friend & being quite overwhelmed by the impact of her not-so-small book.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
National Library Week
Maybe you know, maybe you don't but this is National Library Week. Read a book, people!
I am always interested to see who the ALA is featuring during this most sacred of weeks. I still have my Rebecca Lobo Reads The Giving Tree poster somewhere. & of course, who could forget LLCoolJ posing with The Children's Health Food Book. Trust me, now that you do know there is such a poster, you will not forget for a good long while.
But these were two of many spokes people for the Celebrity Read poster series. & I want to talk about this years National Library Week honorary chair, Neil Gaiman. He has actually come up in this blog before but never by name (so don't bother to search). In part because he wrote the book The Graveyard Book that I keep suggesting to my bookclub & they keep just not going for.
He also wrote Coraline, which was made into a movie, which I tried to watch in 3-D, despite V** telling me I shouldn't do that because 3-D movies make me queasy, which they do. Can you imagine forgetting such a thing? Well I did. Forget, that is. So I did not much enjoy Coraline, but your experience will not be mine. & of course he wrote the book Stardust, which I loved, the movie of which is on one of my all-time favorite Netflix lists: movies not about cross-dressers but having them nonetheless. All of this is the tip of the iceberg, really, as far as what Neil Gaiman has written. He has written so much, it is surprising he ever gets out, but gets out he does.
Earlier this year he was caught in a red carpet panorama at the Oscars. He's the one staring at footprints on the train of the gown before him. I think he says he is almost sure they are not his footprints. But my favorite Neil Gaiman moment is definitely this one. Yes, it is another fashionista photo op, in which he looks amused & if not lost, certainly not vested in the majesty of the moment.
So thank you, Neil Gaiman for a quick tour of where a writer can go & still manage not to be recognized by photographers until they are going through their pictures for the second/third time. & thank you, librarians because without you I would never have heard of this guy. In honor of your week I am going to check out some books, & maybe a few movies every few days for, lets say the rest of my life.
I am always interested to see who the ALA is featuring during this most sacred of weeks. I still have my Rebecca Lobo Reads The Giving Tree poster somewhere. & of course, who could forget LLCoolJ posing with The Children's Health Food Book. Trust me, now that you do know there is such a poster, you will not forget for a good long while.
But these were two of many spokes people for the Celebrity Read poster series. & I want to talk about this years National Library Week honorary chair, Neil Gaiman. He has actually come up in this blog before but never by name (so don't bother to search). In part because he wrote the book The Graveyard Book that I keep suggesting to my bookclub & they keep just not going for.
He also wrote Coraline, which was made into a movie, which I tried to watch in 3-D, despite V** telling me I shouldn't do that because 3-D movies make me queasy, which they do. Can you imagine forgetting such a thing? Well I did. Forget, that is. So I did not much enjoy Coraline, but your experience will not be mine. & of course he wrote the book Stardust, which I loved, the movie of which is on one of my all-time favorite Netflix lists: movies not about cross-dressers but having them nonetheless. All of this is the tip of the iceberg, really, as far as what Neil Gaiman has written. He has written so much, it is surprising he ever gets out, but gets out he does.
Earlier this year he was caught in a red carpet panorama at the Oscars. He's the one staring at footprints on the train of the gown before him. I think he says he is almost sure they are not his footprints. But my favorite Neil Gaiman moment is definitely this one. Yes, it is another fashionista photo op, in which he looks amused & if not lost, certainly not vested in the majesty of the moment.
So thank you, Neil Gaiman for a quick tour of where a writer can go & still manage not to be recognized by photographers until they are going through their pictures for the second/third time. & thank you, librarians because without you I would never have heard of this guy. In honor of your week I am going to check out some books, & maybe a few movies every few days for, lets say the rest of my life.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Big ticket consumer goods are really aliens from another galaxy come to conquer us
I am always interested when a group, of small or large size but preferably a group that had no idea they were grouped, get an idea, wrong, right or just a matter of taste all in line with no apparent source or reason. No I do not mean Fox News or Ralph Nader or anything like that, besides grouping deliberately, they are more about a collection of opinions than any actual ideas. I am thinking more along the lines of apparently small, usually unintended ideas that make big changes.
The Disney movie 101 Dalmations was released in 1961 but before it was a successful movie it was a successful book. It was so successful that only about five years elapsed between the time the book was printed & the time the movie was made. Compare this to the decades+ that elapsed between the book2movie of most Disneyfications. I do not just mean Beauty & the Beast et al, there is also Mary Poppins, published in 1934, movie 1965. Even A Life in the Woods was published in 1926, almost 20 years before Bambi appeared on the big screen; well over ten of which Disney had already been making full length animated films. Something about The Great Dog Robbery was so strong that it grabbed the money-lenders-in-the temple by the throat & they could not wait for the author to die & try to slip a bastardized version of the story by a well-funded copyright review board; they had to have that movie right away. Because it is not how much you spend, but how much you make. & make they did.
One of the unintended upshots was the jump in dalmation purchases. I say unintended because I am sure had Disney been aware this would happen, they would have cornered the market on dalmation puppy mills. In the days before movie product marketing, this would have been hard to anticipate: it would be hard to find a dog less suited for families with small children than a dalmation. Unless it was a cocker spaniel a la Lady & the Tramp.
Flash forward to 2009: the influence of 101 Dalmations is so strong that earlier this year a woman (who must be 20+ years younger than I am; our only connection is her adult-acquired step-mother is a friend of mine) was at my house picking out chickens & when she saw a crevecoeur & asked the hen's name. When I said Perdita she said she KNEW that was what it had to be. After all, what else would anyone call a female black & white spotted anything? Unless it was Missus Pongo.
It is also from this vantage point that I can see quite clearly another upshot: the death of the fur coat industry. The last generation of must-have-a-fur-coat women were already adults in 1961 (except behind the iron curtain women, where it is often colder & there was no Disney). Do not even start to tell me that this is an extension of animal rights activism & awareness. If that were true there would have been no upswing in the purchase of leather coats, which have been steadily climbing for three+ decades. Ask meat-eating, leather-wearing women why they do not want fur & they will tell you: there is just something cruel about it. They will actually use the word CRUEL. PETA can take all the credit they like, I am convinced it was 101 Dalmations.
Which makes me wonder what the next big accident might be & I think I may have found it: Transformers. Check back in 30 years & see if indeed the new grown-ups are not fairly certain we do not need all that multi-tasking gadget crap. Much better to keep everything to a single function so they will be more easily defeated.
& Happy Black Friday.
// The author of The Great Dog Robbery (which I am sure is a charming little volume, although I have never read it) also wrote what I think is one of the must-read books of the 20th Century: I Capture the Castle. I am 99.9% sure there are no dogs in it. Read it anyway.
The Disney movie 101 Dalmations was released in 1961 but before it was a successful movie it was a successful book. It was so successful that only about five years elapsed between the time the book was printed & the time the movie was made. Compare this to the decades+ that elapsed between the book2movie of most Disneyfications. I do not just mean Beauty & the Beast et al, there is also Mary Poppins, published in 1934, movie 1965. Even A Life in the Woods was published in 1926, almost 20 years before Bambi appeared on the big screen; well over ten of which Disney had already been making full length animated films. Something about The Great Dog Robbery was so strong that it grabbed the money-lenders-in-the temple by the throat & they could not wait for the author to die & try to slip a bastardized version of the story by a well-funded copyright review board; they had to have that movie right away. Because it is not how much you spend, but how much you make. & make they did.
One of the unintended upshots was the jump in dalmation purchases. I say unintended because I am sure had Disney been aware this would happen, they would have cornered the market on dalmation puppy mills. In the days before movie product marketing, this would have been hard to anticipate: it would be hard to find a dog less suited for families with small children than a dalmation. Unless it was a cocker spaniel a la Lady & the Tramp.
Flash forward to 2009: the influence of 101 Dalmations is so strong that earlier this year a woman (who must be 20+ years younger than I am; our only connection is her adult-acquired step-mother is a friend of mine) was at my house picking out chickens & when she saw a crevecoeur & asked the hen's name. When I said Perdita she said she KNEW that was what it had to be. After all, what else would anyone call a female black & white spotted anything? Unless it was Missus Pongo.
It is also from this vantage point that I can see quite clearly another upshot: the death of the fur coat industry. The last generation of must-have-a-fur-coat women were already adults in 1961 (except behind the iron curtain women, where it is often colder & there was no Disney). Do not even start to tell me that this is an extension of animal rights activism & awareness. If that were true there would have been no upswing in the purchase of leather coats, which have been steadily climbing for three+ decades. Ask meat-eating, leather-wearing women why they do not want fur & they will tell you: there is just something cruel about it. They will actually use the word CRUEL. PETA can take all the credit they like, I am convinced it was 101 Dalmations.
Which makes me wonder what the next big accident might be & I think I may have found it: Transformers. Check back in 30 years & see if indeed the new grown-ups are not fairly certain we do not need all that multi-tasking gadget crap. Much better to keep everything to a single function so they will be more easily defeated.
& Happy Black Friday.
// The author of The Great Dog Robbery (which I am sure is a charming little volume, although I have never read it) also wrote what I think is one of the must-read books of the 20th Century: I Capture the Castle. I am 99.9% sure there are no dogs in it. Read it anyway.
Friday, November 6, 2009
The women who stare at chickens
I have tried to read The Men Who Stare at Goats, I really tried. But it is just too close to Joyce's stream of consciousness style for me to be able to stick with it. It is like that scene in Ghostbusters where you must not cross the streams because...it would be bad.
You can see how this would lead to a very different understanding of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man than my classmates, making my exams answers a bit off. I still maintain that mine were more Joycean.
I can actually see how goat-watching would make you think you are accomplishing something. After almost a decade of staring at chickens I am almost certain I can direct their actions, except when they resist me. Which they often do, Stoopid chickens.
A would like to see the MWSAG movie at the theaters but alas it is playing at the bad theater. This theater used to have - & may still, I would not know - a baby gets in free policy. That's right, so long as the baby is small enough to sit on your lap, you do not need to pay anything for baby's ticket. Because everyone knows that the most disruptive thing a baby can do in a movie theater is take up space.
By & large it was the later movies that were a problem. People seem more likely to bring their babies to movies after 8pm. Which is interesting because that is the date-movie market. I have a theory that this is why people are not getting married anymore. Think about it, you meet someone interesting, you go to a movie, there are babies taking up all that seating & after the movie all you can talk about is....all those babies. Neither of you remembers much of the movie. There was a time when you actually had to HAVE a baby for baby talk to dominate an otherwise baby-free after-movie conversation.
The only way this date ends well is if both of you vow to never have any babies. I suppose it would also be OKay if you both agreed to bring your future babies to the movies because it was such a rollicking good time, but I have never heard of that happening. Usually one of you says "all babies must die" or the slightly more reasonable "all parents must die" & the other says "not all parents are like that; you are judging all parents based on a self-selected group & that is not fair". If you are still going to movies-on-a-date, you are way too early in the process for the That's Not Fair defense & well, it is a relationship killer, every time.
So, what was I talking about? Oh yes, chickens. I like to watch chickens.
Once upon a time & a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo... Callie says the dairy barn adds a new ice cream flavor every semester but they almost never keep them through the next semester.
His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass; his father had a hairy face. Whatever is left after finals they sell but they never make any more.
He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne lived: wasn't Betty Byrne one of those lady pirates? Or was that was Mary Kelly? No, Mary Kelly was on of the Jack the Ripper's victims. She sold lemon platt. Wait, what?
You can see how this would lead to a very different understanding of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man than my classmates, making my exams answers a bit off. I still maintain that mine were more Joycean.
I can actually see how goat-watching would make you think you are accomplishing something. After almost a decade of staring at chickens I am almost certain I can direct their actions, except when they resist me. Which they often do, Stoopid chickens.
A would like to see the MWSAG movie at the theaters but alas it is playing at the bad theater. This theater used to have - & may still, I would not know - a baby gets in free policy. That's right, so long as the baby is small enough to sit on your lap, you do not need to pay anything for baby's ticket. Because everyone knows that the most disruptive thing a baby can do in a movie theater is take up space.
By & large it was the later movies that were a problem. People seem more likely to bring their babies to movies after 8pm. Which is interesting because that is the date-movie market. I have a theory that this is why people are not getting married anymore. Think about it, you meet someone interesting, you go to a movie, there are babies taking up all that seating & after the movie all you can talk about is....all those babies. Neither of you remembers much of the movie. There was a time when you actually had to HAVE a baby for baby talk to dominate an otherwise baby-free after-movie conversation.
The only way this date ends well is if both of you vow to never have any babies. I suppose it would also be OKay if you both agreed to bring your future babies to the movies because it was such a rollicking good time, but I have never heard of that happening. Usually one of you says "all babies must die" or the slightly more reasonable "all parents must die" & the other says "not all parents are like that; you are judging all parents based on a self-selected group & that is not fair". If you are still going to movies-on-a-date, you are way too early in the process for the That's Not Fair defense & well, it is a relationship killer, every time.
So, what was I talking about? Oh yes, chickens. I like to watch chickens.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Save the liver
Last Saturday, we went to see Julie & Julia & it was hands down the best movie I have seen in a long long time. When I said it, A said he thought it was the best movie he had seen in a long time, too. Loved that movie.
Which is funny because I have tried twice (& have it on hold at the library again) to read the book & it just does not seem to click with me. This is how books get read in my house, by me: they sit in a pile on the kitchen table & I sift through them. I pick one up &./or put one down almost every time I pass the table. I read when I am waiting on hold, I read when I vacuum, I read when I watch tv & sometimes I even read when I am reading. Occasionally, when I am having trouble getting into a book I flip to the middle or so & start reading from there. This actually helps. It worked with The Lovely Bones (also soon to be out in theaters YAY). It helped with the Eyre Affair (yes bookclubbers that one took two tries). I read maybe ten pages & then went back to the beginning.
It did not work with The Life & Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, or frankly anything by Gregory Maguire, who is in good company as I cannot cope with Dickens, think F. Scott Fitzgerald is overrated & do not get me started on the G*d Damned Fish Book.
Ah well, while I wait for the book to come to me via my local library reserve system, I will enjoy my favorite other channeling of Julia Child right here.
Which is funny because I have tried twice (& have it on hold at the library again) to read the book & it just does not seem to click with me. This is how books get read in my house, by me: they sit in a pile on the kitchen table & I sift through them. I pick one up &./or put one down almost every time I pass the table. I read when I am waiting on hold, I read when I vacuum, I read when I watch tv & sometimes I even read when I am reading. Occasionally, when I am having trouble getting into a book I flip to the middle or so & start reading from there. This actually helps. It worked with The Lovely Bones (also soon to be out in theaters YAY). It helped with the Eyre Affair (yes bookclubbers that one took two tries). I read maybe ten pages & then went back to the beginning.
It did not work with The Life & Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, or frankly anything by Gregory Maguire, who is in good company as I cannot cope with Dickens, think F. Scott Fitzgerald is overrated & do not get me started on the G*d Damned Fish Book.
Ah well, while I wait for the book to come to me via my local library reserve system, I will enjoy my favorite other channeling of Julia Child right here.
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