Ugh. I have a stack of books towering on my bedside table. They are part of the New Regime (resolution-style), and they are all good for me (Zen! Shakespeare! Financial management!) but they are certainly not FUN. My eyes were even glazing on BART over reading The Street of Crocodiles, by Bruno Schulz, which is very lovely but meandering.
Lucky the SF Library pulled through at exactly the right time! I finally received Julia Wertz’s Drinking at the Movies, a graphic novel memoir, which I requested months ago.
It won’t be a great revelation to say that people like what they know. I know that I am much kinder to a work if it resonates with me, or, even better for some reason, features places that I haunt. Adrian Tomine, who frequently draws East Bay locales, or Allegra Goodman’s The Cookbook Collector, which took place in Berkeley both have me sitting up straight in bed, squealing, “OH yes, I know that hot dog stand!! I have frequented that hot dog stand!!”
Anyways. Wertz’s memoir chronicles her move from SF to Brooklyn, and as I live in the beginning end of her journey, I didn’t find as many places to squeal about. (Although her cliches about the Bay were pretty apt). It’s the mid-20s crisis that especially hits close to home for me. What the heck am I supposed to be doing? Is everyone else this aimless? Why can’t I get paid for drinking beer and watching tv in my bed?
Wertz has an open, if not entirely friendly voice and drawing style to accompany those of us struggling in your twenties (and if you’re not struggling, I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT). Her own life has a few more curveballs, as her brother is a recovering addict and her own relationship with alcohol suggests addiction might run in the family. But it’s a wry, frank, and funny take on that time in your life when you not only don’t only know how to put on your bootstraps, you don’t even know what bootstraps are.
I’m determined to check out her earlier work (which takes place in San Francisco!!!), Fart Party. Here’s her website, and blog, and stuff on Amazon.
I’ve been on a bit of an Isak Dinesen kick lately. It started when I rented Out of Africa, then picked up the book. She’s become one of my historical crushes (in good company with Frida Kahlo and Katharine Hepburn), and I’m itching to read her biography, as she had the most dramatic life: photographed by Richard Avedon (see picture), written about by Truman Capote, and played by Meryl Streep.
Born in 1885 to a wealthy family in Denmark, she married and became the Countess Karen von Blixen (Isak Dinesen is her pen name – in Hebrew, “Isak” means “the one who laughs”). She and her husband moved to Kenya, where they ran a coffee plantation. It was not the happiest of marriages, and they divorced in the mid 1920s when she got infected with syphilis from her husband. She then returned to Denmark and lived on her family estate, writing and maintaining her image as an aristocratic, enigmatic lady of letters.
Seven Gothic Tales was written in 1934 (in the U.S.). She wrote her books in both Danish and English, and I would be hard pressed to peg her as a non-native speaker. The Tales hearken back to a time when the act of story-telling was a noble and respected art. Each character in the Tales brings has at least one story to tell, leaving the reader feel all the richer as you jump for Denmark to Italy to Africa.
I wouldn’t say that the Tales are Gothic in temperament, but rather in their setting, both spooky and off-putting. Beautiful women perform furious ballets in the dead of night. Monkeys hold the souls of elderly abbesses by their prickly little claws. My nighttime dreams became more vibrant while I was reading this book. The Tales highlights the belief that stories and myths are magic, that they both take us away from the everyday and are ingrained within it. I highly recommend them for reading by the fire as these winter nights drag on.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes, from a Tale called “The Monkey”:
“Women, he thought, when they are old enough to have done with the business of being women, and can let loose their strength, must be the most powerful creatures in the whole world.”
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/9120788″]
There are some times that I do want to live in LA or NY, and usually those instances have to do with movie releases. (Apparently we have to wait for Blue Valentine an extra two weeks. C’mon people! The Bay Area needs its post-holiday relationship wallowing, too!).
I’m lucky enough that my mom lives in LA, so I was able to catch a film I had been looking forward to for quite some time: The Illusionist, an animated movie based on a script by Jacques Tati.
The film is directed by Sylvain Chomet, who also directed one of my favorite animated movies, Les Triplettes de Belleville. Chomet’s animation style is more distorted, more grotesque than the smooth-cheeked 2D Disney characters we have grown up with (he actually has many thoughts on 3D vs. 2D which you can read about in an interview with The Playlist).
The Illusionist is not as clamorous; it’s actually a quietly beautiful movie, with lovely backgrounds of 1940s Scotland that are as gentle as watercolors. It follows the story of a French magician (based on Jacques Tati, the man) whose act is falling flat to audiences entranced with t.v. and rock & roll. He travels to a small town in Scotland, where a young(ish) girl sees his act and believes, quite sincerely, that he can practice magic.
I read afterword that this script was Tati’s way of reaching out to an illegitimate daughter that he never got to know. As to the truth of that, I cannot say, but the movie does capture love and loss and growing up…. and in so few words, too! The characters barely speak, partially because they do not speak the same language, and partially because there really is no need.
I can’t recommend this movie enough. My family and I saw it after the holidays, and we were all left the richer for it.
Oh goodness, it’s 2011 already. All my favorite blogs have been doing some hard work summarizing and rating the year, and I’ve listed my favorites here:
Happy New Year!!!
The holidays can be a bit of a drag sometimes. With all the pressure to get with your nearest and dearest, it instead highlights feeling of loneliness.
Last Christmas I discovered this Neko Case cover of a Tom Waits song, and it has a special place in my heart. Good for wallowing.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgTPo4zRI2Q]
Merry freaking Christmas.
It’s the end of 2010, and in cultural reporting that means best-of-the-year lists, which for film usually folds in Oscar predictions. I’ve written before about how much I get excited about the Oscars, and this year I’m pleased to report that I’ve seen most of the movies that are making the rounds.
Winter’s Bone was released in the spring here, and I dragged my feet seeing it, but it actually is a film enjoyed on the small screen. Jennifer Lawrence plays Ree Dolly, a teenage girl taking girl of her younger brother and sister and mother, who is alive but mentally absent. Her dad dealt meth, was arrested, and placed their home as his bond. When he disappears, Ree decides to go find him.
The movie was filmed on location in the Appalachians, where the land is sturdy but not lovely. Each character Ree meets knows her and already knows what she’s looking for (and probably where he is), but they all look upon her suspiciously. This is not an open and welcoming community, and even as Ree is part of and understands their world, she is asking too many questions.
I read some reviews where they described it as a noir movie, and it’s true that Lawrence is as fierce and dedicated as any Marlowe detective. But she has the added determination of protecting her home and family, whereas I always see noir leads as flippant and louche.
Winter’s Bone is as unflinching as the title suggest. It’s a lean, cold slice of a movie. As far as my Oscar best go? Best Actress nominee, Best Cinematography nominee.
Normally I stay away from “re-tellings,” especially of Jane Austen books. Books “inspired by” Austen seem to bring out the worst in chick-lit cliches, as they tend to sneak in retro gender roles under the guise of maintaining historical accuracy. Or something.
I first heard of The Cookbook Collector, by Allegra Goodman, from a magazine mention (EW maybe?) that emphasized the book’s connection to Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. In truth, the book’s flap jacket doesn’t mention it at all, and any sort of resemblance is loose at best. The Cookbook Collector describes two sisters, one sensible (Emily) and one sensitive (Jess), in modern day Berkeley and Silicon Valley.
Confession: I love books set in places I know. When Goodman mentions Top Dog, or Greens, or other streets in Berkeley, I get very excitable. Despite my hyper-local prejudice, it’s a very lovely, thoughtful book. The characters are full-bodied and complex, and quite true to life to Bay Area types. One sister volunteers for a Save-the-Trees like organization, while the other sister’s start-up’s IPO just went public. And while their lives are undeniably modern, especially compared to the lack of choices afforded to 19th century women, what’s striking is how timeless those conflicts are: how much are you willing to surrender for those you love?
I’d see this book being a great bookclub choice, and a great holiday present for a booky friend. And if you don’t get hungry from all the luscious food descriptions found in the cookbook collection in the title, well, you might have a stomach made of stone.
Ever had a Netflix movie hang around your neck like an albatross? (Literary allusion explained here, for those who fell asleep in 10th grade English class).
In my defense, A Christmas Tale (in French Un conte de Noël) seemed to sneak up in my queue. It was meant to arrive around the holidays LAST YEAR, but instead got co-opted by repeated Party Down (RIP) viewings. The disc arrived around April, and I had been putting off watching it. So many excuses: it’s long, in French, and Christmas-themed.
The disc seemed destined to return unwatched, but a cold front in the Bay Area sometime in August inspired me to make some tea and watch it. (That’s right, this post is fraught with procrastination, from watching, to writing, to posting).
Now that it’s actually the holidays, I can justify a recommendation, for it’s a lovely, rich movie, if perhaps more melancholy than your typical Christmas cinema (although It’s a Wonderful Life is quite dark when you think about it).
Mid-way through watching, it struck me how much A Christmas Tale reminded me of The Royal Tenenbaums. There’s a sick parent, an elegant matriach (Catherine Deneuve, natch), a killer soundtrack, depressed grown-up siblings, a suicide attempt, a family hanger-on, even a play put on by children.
The two movies would make an interesting side-by-side viewing. Anderson’s films have such wonderful, tightly manicured art direction but the characters verge on being caricatures. Any sort of real emotion on their part creeps in on the edges. A Christmas Tale, directed by Arnaud Desplechin, has similarly beautifully shot scenes in French hospitals and the wonderful, rambling family home, but the characters in A Christmas Tale wear their childhood traumas on their sleeve and always seem ready to erupt. One especially harrowing scene has Deneuve and her grown son joking about how much she didn’t love him after the childhood death of another son. Another example of Gallic cruelty: if a partner of mind slept with someone else under my nose, would I be able to wake up and breakfast with them both? Is this another of those Gallic things? Yes? OK.
In short. It’s a rich and devastating movie. Recommended pre or post actual holiday interactions with family (i.e. good for some perspective).
Plus, it introduced me to this Otis Redding song, which I’ve listened to 8 times a day so far this month:[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBmPIQvovD0]
