We’ve been dealing with the after-effects of Hurricane Ike in Cincinnati this week. The wind damage knocked out power to most of the region for a few days, and some people are still without service. It was such a strange event and demonstrated just how vulnerable we all are.
On a lighter note, I had the perfect song stuck in my head for the event: The folk song “Electricity” by Paul Burch.
“I’ve got fire in a wire…”
Its lack of nostalgia is what makes Mad Men, an AMC original series, the most interesting show on television. Considering it is set in the early 1960s wealthy Manhattan business world, this is a major feat.
On one hand, the show makes it easy to be impressed with the art and look of the times, but, on another, it repeatedly shows you why today is a whole lot better. Bad things fill its scenes constantly and to repeat them would sound like a sociology lecture.
The ringmaster of this circus is Donald Draper, played by Jon Hamm. He is the perfect business man: A creative genius who also can craft cunning strategy. And he’s as handsome as stylists can make ‘em.
Draper will almost always do the wrong thing but has been able, up to this point, to continue to live his life’s lie. He still needs his comeuppance, which will be mirroring America as the show progresses through the 1960s social upheaval. I am waiting to see how Draper and the others will react, which is half the fun and half the dread.
The show’s opening credits provide the correct tone up front: A heavy, black shape of a man falling from a skyscraper through a delicate sea of light, pastel-colored feminine advertising. Obviously, this is no Man in the Gray Flannel Suit—our man has no hope for redemption.
Thank God.
I finally broke down and rented Pride & Prejudice (1995), the miniseries. I was willed to do so by one of my comfort movies—Bridget Jones’ Diary. (Be forewarned I have a lot of comfort movies that include British accents). Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy makes such an impression in the miniseries, he shows up the Bridget Jones novel/movie.
The length is intimidating, but its five hours goes by faster than expected. Firth doesn’t disappoint as the rich and handsome Mr. Darcy, though he had perfected the snobbish stare better in Bridget Jones (and even better in Girl with a Pearl Earring).
Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet plays up the smugness as in the first half of the movie with her eyes darting back and forth and a tight smile. But she moves on, as does Elizabeth, and she won me over with her sparing matches with Firth.
The good thing for me is, apparently, I have an inability to remember the plotline of the story. I have read the novel and seen Keira Knightley’s version and still was surprised by the miniseries. The ridiculousness of her mother and sisters and a gratuitous use of the word “indeed” made more of an impact on me this time around.
But the essential goodness of Jane Austen survives well in the series—the importance of romantic love and the impact of class in one’s destiny. I recommend it. Indeed, I would.
I’m very happy to have submitted a freelance nonfiction article today. Yay! Now I can concentrate on poetry submissions. I have already befouled my newest edition of Poet’s Market with lots of post-it flags.
At my writing group last week, three of us talked about how we tend to write new pieces instead of editing older ones, since it is hard to reconnect to the feeling of a particular poem. Sometimes, my poems are like bad relationships: either getting back together is doomed for failure or there is potential but I’m just avoiding the work.
Now, I got Smokey Robinson singing in my head…”My mama told me/You better shop around.” Good advice for lovers or poets.
I enjoy adding some gender/age diversity to this no-woman zone, but, just once, I want to run into Doris Kearns Goodwin. I want her to autograph my Candace Bushnell novels. It would be a fitting way to bring my worlds together.
Sometimes, I have to think about a book for a while before deciding if I really liked it or not, and Brock Clarke’s novel, An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England (2007), is one of those situations.
It is a story about a 40ish man who spent 10 years in prison for burning down the Emily Dickinson house (it is still there in real life) and who has avoided the consequences in all his major relationships (wife, parents, victims, etc). Until now.
Basically, it is a satire of people who care deeply about the written word. English majors with a propensity to burn–both inside and out.
I usually find satire, much like heavy sarcasm, to be too disingenuous. But in this case, I enjoyed it, especially how it worked with the theme of one’s life can be stranger than fiction.
What is harder to accept is that the main character, Sam, is either passive or drunk in the most of the action of the story, and it is hard to stick with a character like that.
I can say the writing is great with lines that would make any writer (read: me) jealous. Such as:
This new mother of mine was less pretty but more beautiful than my old mother, which is to say, I guess, that prettiness is something to like and beauty is something to be scared of, and I was scared of it, and her.”
These sorts of observations, especially in the last half of the book, reminded me of another first-person narrative, Prep (2005) by Curtis Sittenfeld, the queen of the true life anecdote.
The bottom line is I will have to smolder on the novel some more, but the fire is probably worth the ash.
Across the Universe (2007) is a musical that uses Beatles songs to tell a love story in 1960s America as Vietnam and counterculture heat up.
I was introduced to the music of the film first on Oprah, so my impression was Jim Sturgess is a cutie-pie and the Beatles are best left to oldies radio stations.
See, like anything one hears all the freakin’ time, I had been blocking out the Beatles and hadn’t considered their songwriting ingenuity in a long time (not since watching Backbeat). I did enjoy the Beatles Night on American Idol cuz I could sing my heart out with Brooke White. But I never listen to my copy of Beatles: One and never felt it necessary to purchase a real album.
The film itself is very similar in style to Moulin Rouge (2001), even their British love struck leading men and provocative choreography (see the dance scenes of “I Want You/She’s so Heavy” in AU and “Roxanne” in MR).
The movie won me over for its inventive use of 1960s iconography and pop culture. Lennon and McCartney created songs that were both timely and timeless, which makes them the perfect match for this project.
The bottom line is Across the Universe is a solid musical set in the 1960s for a crowd watching forty years later.
I giggled like a little boy while I was listening to this week’s This American Life and their segment on kids who misinterpret things and continue to believe them into adulthood. My favorite was the woman who passionately defended the addition of unicorns to the endangered species list at a dinner party.
Oh, the stories I could on myself. Directions on toothpaste confounded me for years. “For best results, squeeze tube from the bottom.” Why would toothpaste would clean better if squeezed from the bottom? I thought maybe it needed to be shaken up like salad dressing or excess gases from the toothpaste factory should be separated from the paste. I’m proud to report I figured out the toothpaste is just easier to get OUT of the tube when squeezed from the bottom… All by myself… By the time i was 25.
Another classic was junk mail. It always came in our mailbox addressed either to our household “or Current Resident.” But when your family name is Currence and you are learning the rules of grammar, such as plural vs. singular, you start to wonder why the backup plan for a catalog would go to just one of us. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I realized, as a Curren(ce) Resident, i personally was entitled to read everyone’s junk mail. A right I still invoke.
ProPublica has been hiring an impressive roster of investigative journalists as of late. ProPublica is a nonprofit “newsroom” whose mission is to produce investigative journalism.
Who they are, directly from their website:
“Our work will focus exclusively on truly important stories, stories with “moral force.” We will do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them.”
I wish I could join those of you who are getting the 3G iPhone tomorrow. Alas, I’ve only had my iPhone for 6 months, so I’m not planning to upgrade for a while. The 3G will be great, but EDGE has taught me great patience. How else am I going to hear the sounds of nature if my YouTube videos don’t take 5 minutes to load?
I am a PC iPhone user, which can be a challenge since I don’t have iCal. After 2 weeks of research, I went with the (free) system of using Google Calendar with Plaxo to manually sync with my home computer’s Outlook and iPhone.
The only mishap I had was installing Google sync for Microsoft Outlook when it first launched, thinking it would be great to cut out the Plaxo step. The little bugger wiped my whole calendar–history and future–within 60 seconds. I immediately deleted the app and cried.
(BTW, in case of a future data wipe, I now archive my past months on Google calendar by creating PDFs, using Google Docs, to file away in Gmail.)
I also use Remember the Milk for my to-do list with the iPhone upgrade, and absolutely love Jott to create voice-to-text reminders.
I’ll be keeping my eye on MobileMe from Apple once it’s launched.
And just think, I was actually using a paper planner this time last year. Pfft.
Melissa Currence 