Nine years ago today, G. Grod and I stumbled blearily across Market Street in Philly to get our first cups of coffee as a married couple. There we found my sisters Ruthie and Sydney, and Syd’s best friend Buffy and her husband Ace. It was a wonderful impromptu morning-after celebration. Thanks for being there, everyone, especially you, G.
Season 4 of Top Chef has begun to film in Chicago. (Link thanks to The Watcher)
Note to NBC: longer isn’t better, even with something I love, like The Office. It’s just two episodes smashed together, and ones I would rather see a week apart than endure re-runs sooner than I have to. There were many laugh-out-loud moments about a car accident that made me feel both entertained at the show and horrified at myself for laughing. This was combined with the Office’s usual moments that induce horrified gasps, like a “dangling participle”, and cat-clawed frozen-french-fry bags. No matter. It was still very funny, and has more than earned its Season Pass on my Tivo.
One of the best and funniest of the fall’s new shows. I’m not the only one to think so: see The Watcher, Everybody Loves Saturday Night, Teevee.net, Entertainment Weekly, and The Onion AV Club. It’s a dark, comedic fantasy about a slacker named Sam whose parents sold his soul to the devil, and the bill comes due on his 21st birthday. It’s a little like Buffy with Boys. Robert Wise is charming with a perfect undercurrent of scary as the devil. Sam is non-threateningly cute, he’s got a less-good-looking-but-funnier friend named Sock, and his love interest is sweet but not (yet) cloying. The first ep was directed by Kevin Smith, and made me laugh out loud several times, mostly at things Sock did. This got an immediate season pass on my Tivo.
There’s been a fair amount of griping about the Bionic Woman reboot of the 70’s sci-fi series. I have fond memories of that show from my childhood, which I dare not test by actually tracking down old eps. (Though there is that one with Kristy McNichol as a telekinetic, now that I think of it.)
The criticism focuses most on English star Michelle Ryan’s lack of charisma, though she doesn’t seem to have much to work with, given the character as written. Jaime Summers is a college dropout, a bartender, and a caregiver for her technologically transgressive little sister, who was left on Jaime’s doorstep by their drunk father. Lindsay Wagner’s Jaime was a famous tennis player, whose athleticism brought her to the notice of the bionic scientists. BW 2007 gets her hardware upgrade courtesy of her mad scientist boyfriend, reluctantly financed by shady government types. Other snarks center on the all-over-the-place pilot.
I don’t disagree on either point. Ryan’s Summers is not compelling, and there’s a lot going on. But Katee Sackhoff, one of my favorite actor’s from Battlestar Galactica, has a treat of a recurring role as Sarah Corvus, the original bionic woman. Miguel Ferrer is also good as the head government baddie, who I kept wishing would be named as Oscar Goldman. And a crowded pilot means there’s a lot to explore if the season pans out.
A cameo by Aaron Douglas, who plays Chief Tyrol on Battlestar Galactica, shows that BW creators are hoping to snare the BG geek audience. They’re at least got me, for now.
Some other opinions at Teevee.net, Onion AV Club, The Watcher.
#62 in my 2007 movie challenge was the Christopher Reeve Superman, still one of the best superhero movies, ever. The more recent Superman Returns pales in comparison, proving that special effects are no compensation for the lack of the original’s compelling casting of Reeve, Kidder, and Hackman.
The beginning of the film sets the stage for the next film, and details the destruction of Krypton. Brando is a commanding presence, but his flat delivery hints at a paycheck. It is a full fifty minutes until Reeve appears in Metropolis as Clark Kent, meeting Kidder’s Lois Lane soon after. And it’s finally at the 1:10 mark that we see the title character himself, and the film takes off with him. Reeve does a fabulous job switching between the bumbling Clark Kent and his alter ego. The chemistry with Kidder is palpable, and nowhere more evident than in the rooftop interview, one of the most romantic movie scenes ever made. Unfortunately, it is followed by the cheesy Kidder voiceover as he takes her flying, set to the strains of “Can You Read My Mind,” which went on to become a high school band staple in the 80’s.
The DVD extras are worthwhile, especially Reeve’s screen tests. A relative unknown, his looks and charisma made him suited to the suit, not ridiculous in it. They also hint at the strength of character he would be known for later in life.
The geek world celebrates Stephen Fry, a long-time gadget wonk, but a first time blogger about it. Am I the only one imagining him reading at least part of this entry aloud on Youtube?
Apparently the much-hyped Blade Runner Director’s Cut of the 90’s was no such thing. James Christopher at the Times Online (link thanks to Blogenheimer) wonders whether we needed a third version of Blade Runner, this one actually edited by Ridley Scott.
For my husband it’s football season. For me, it begins with Entertainment Weekly’s Fall TV Preview. Since I’m a subscriber this year, it was delivered to my home, and I didn’t have to spend fruitless weeks scanning the shelves at Target, and harassing the booksellers at Barnes and Noble to see when it hit the stand.
This year, though, I’ve let a lot more TV-critic cooks in the kitchen of my what-to-watch debate. I started out with a long list. I pared it down to a short list. I think I’ve rebounded back up to a long list, though perhaps a slightly different one.
Aiding and abetting me in my Fall TV nerdish obsessing:
The girls at Everybody Loves Saturday Night
The vidiots at TeeVee
Maureen Ryan’s The Watcher at The Chicago Tribune
The new Variety television blog Season Pass, especially its geek-tastic critic’s pick chart
Returning shows I’m going to watch:
How I Met Your Mother (I picked this up in summer reruns; it’s hilarious)
Heroes
Bones
House
My Name is Earl
The Office
30 Rock (also started watching this summer; it’s also hilarious)
Friday Night Lights (can’t fight the acclaim any longer; I’ll start watching this fall)
After much rumination, I think I’m going to audition these new shows for my roster:
Monday, I’ll have to choose among The Big Bang Theory, Chuck, and Aliens in America, since my Tivo can only record two shows at once. (Oh, hardship.)
Tuesday has The Reaper.
Wednesday, I am geekily excited for Bionic Woman; Jaime Summers was one of my first childhood heroines. Even though reviews have been mixed, I’m hoping for a Battlestar Galactic-like reboot. Pushing Daisies is also getting mixed reviews, but sounds so divisive I’m wondering which end I’d fall on. And Peter Krause in Dirty Sexy Money seems like a no brainer.
Thursday I might check out Big Shots, because Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas was brought on as a producer.
And Friday’s Women’s Murder Club might have potential.
The moment of truth: if I watch all these shows every week, my total weekly TV consumption will be, drumroll please….
Fourteen. Ack. An average of two hours per night. Forget it. I need to read, too. If only I can restrain myself, and leave others to uncover the trash and treasures, I may still make my book challenge by the end of the year.
The geek pecking order is uncovered by The Brunching Shuttlecocks.
I fall in the fourth level of geekdom, as a comic-book fan who reads superhero books, though I think Daredevil might be the only one right now.
One of my friends was disturbed when she learned about furrie fans. I don’t think she’d be surprised to find where they sit on the chart.
Wednesdays are new comic days. We usually go to a certain pizza place for a quick dinner, then to the comic shop to pick up the new titles. G. Grod wanted to do something different from pizza, though, so he drove to another nearby restaurant. As he pulled in, 4yo Drake’s voice rose in a shout, “NO! Pizza!” Surprised at the immediate vehemence, G. tried to reason with him. Then he pulled out of the parking lot, drove to the usual place, and as we pulled in the parking lot 19mo Guppy grinned, clapped his hands, and said, “Yay! Pees-ah!” over and over. Children love routine, and we learned not to mess with it last night. And we got a free pepperoni kids pizza when the kitchen had an oops, G. and I tried a very good salame e funghi pizza with LOTS of garlic, so things turned out well.
At the comic shop, Guppy insisted on being put down, not carried, and proceeded to run four laps around an aisle. I picked him up again before damage occurred, but he lunged toward a plush character, grabbed it and began yelling “Muh-tee!” (Monkey) He clutched it to his heart, then pronounced “My muh-tee” and was so absurdly cute that we could hardly deny him the toy.
Meanwhile, I tried to interest Drake in the very nice and inexpensive first volume of the graphic novel starring Guppy’s “monkey”, but he was having none of it. Instead, he picked out and insisted on the second volume of a teen girl’s manga title; we grudgingly bought him the first volume a few weeks ago. “Let the kid get what he wants,” laughed the owner, as I grumbled and wrote out the check.
Yes, we could have protested, but why? Guppy clearly was enamored with the toy, as Drake was with the book. And all of us enjoyed the pizza. It is more clear than ever to G. Grod and me who is in charge at our house. The animals are running the zoo.
Well, duh, but bravo for someone inventing a machine that tries to remedy things. (Link from Boing Boing)
#38 in my 2007 book challenge is Hope Larson’s slim and lovely graphic novel Gray Horses.
Noemie is a French exchange student, on her own for the first time. In Onion City she befriends free-spirited Anna, a baker’s daugher who scultps in bread, and finds herself the target of a mysterious photographer–but it’s not until she falls asleep that things really get weird.
Larson’s art is beautiful and accessible, and the choice of two-tone color emphasizes it well. The story is both realistic and dreamy. All passages in French are translated, so this is a good book for beginning students of French. This book charmingly bucks the YA conventions of geeky boys and group acceptance. It’s evocative in both art and story. There is much for a reader to savor here. Recommended.
G. Grod and I had a date at the MN State Fair last night. We parked and rode, which was free and not too time consuming. Since we entered near the creative arts building, we checked that out first. There were some cool quilts, like one with Ugly-Doll looking beasties. The sock monkey corner has expanded, but I think the geek pleasure maxed out last year, and this year the monkeys have jumped the shark. (Thanks, Jon Hein, for that term, by the way.)
I found my four baking entries on display among the hundreds of others. I was proud of myself (and G. Grod) for spotting them. I felt like I’d found my kids in a big crowd. The winning entries must have tasted better, because their appearance wasn’t exceptional. The winning brownies looked rather pale and were probably made with Hershey’s cocoa, which doesn’t provide enough chocolate punch for my taste. The winning scones were wedge shaped and denser than mine. The winning banana breads looked very plain–just bananas, or bananas and walnuts. Perhaps my bittersweet shaved chocolate was too risque for the judges in that category. I think I’ll bake again next year, as long as I can have fun with it, try not to care if I win, and minimize my “one more thing” stress-y tendencies.
We went to see Greg Brown, but decided to wander rather than see the whole show. We caught a few songs, which reminded us that he’s a great songwriter with a low voice that draws us in.
Foodwise, the new things we tried were mostly disappointing, while the old faves held up:
Corn fritters and fried green tomatoes with honey butter: the former were savory and sweet, the latter were tangy. The honey butter complemented both. Yum; highly recommended.
1919 root beer: nicely spicy and smooth; highly recommended
New: Uff-da Brat from Sausage Sister N Me: Disappointing. Dry lefse around a decent brat. Perhaps it would be better with the works (mashed potatoes and kraut), but they sounded awfully heavy. The lingonberry ketchup was sweet and bland. Not recommended. Try some of their past winners instead: Puff Daddy on a Stick, or Nacho Sistaaz.
Mouth Trap fried cheese curds: the must-have; greasy, gooey, and a whopping $5 (is that more expensive than last year?) Still, highly recommended.
New: Sundae with Minnesota strawberries: unremarkable. Soft-serve ice cream was stiff and not very flavorful, strawberries were macerated and good, but nothing more. Recommended with reservations.
New: Spam burger (for G. Grod, but I took a bite when he swore it was good): Surprisingly good, in a “I can’t believe I’m eating this, yet I crave another bite” way. Soft bun, salty slab of Spam, gooey cheese=remarkably simple yet tasty combination. Recommended, in spite of myself.
New: Frozen Key Lime Pie on a Stick: Not good. The lime pie was simultaneously bitter and over-sugared. The sweetness did not offset the bitterness, and overwhelmed the chocolate coating, rendering it tasteless. Not recommended.
[I'll try to add links later.]
#29 in my 2007 book challenge was the graphic novel My Dead Girlfriend, Volume 1 by Eric Wight. Wight was the ghost artist for Seth Cohen’s character on The O.C.
(I’m having trouble making that last sentence make sense. Adam Brody played Seth Cohen on the show. His character drew comic characters, including Little Miss Vixen. So Wight was the real-life artist who drew the comics for Brody’s fictional character Seth. Got that? Yeah.)
Finney Bleak lives in a goth world. His family is cursed to have interesting deaths. When he falls in love and the girl later stands him up, he seems like a typical geeky high-school boy. As the title suggests, though, there are some interesting surprises for him.
The book is published by Tokyopop, though it feels in story and art more manga-influenced than manga, though I know that’s a debate that can rage forever. I also saw a lot of Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury in the expressions around the characters’ eyes.
Wight’s art style is distinctive and likeable. I found it much more engaging than the story, which was merely good, though it is an interesting riff on teen alienation. Funny and slightly bittersweet, the book will appeal to fans of both young-adult novels, dark fantasy, goth and manga.
For a lighter, younger walk on the goth side, check out Andi Watson’s latest effort, Glister, from Image Comics. Glister Butterworth is a sassy girl, around whom strange things happen. In issue one, she’s called on to type up the unfinished novel of a ghost. Along the way, she uncovers the truth about a curious teapot. Glister is all ages, fun, and funny. My 4yo son Drake loves both the book as an object, and for paging through to look at the art.
I recommend both My Dead Girlfriend and Glister.
#28 in my 2007 book challenge was And Then One Day, the collected autobiographical comic strips by Ryan Claytor. Truthfully, I bought this because he was on tour at my comic store for a signing; no one was there; he seemed nice; the art looked good; and I felt sorry for him.
I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the book. Claytor’s book has an “aw-shucks” nice-guy normalcy that stands out among the often aggressively dark, and alienated indie-comic crowd. He does a strip a day, much like James Kochalka’s Sketchbook Diaries. He lacks Kochalka’s sometimes off-putting weirdness, though he’s not quite as kookily charming, either. Claytor’s art style is strongly drawn, distinctive, and accessible. I think it will appeal to those who like Alex Robinson, as well as daily comic-strip fans.
At $10, I thought the small book was expensive, but the colored, textured gatefold cover and the upscale offset printing of the heavy, cream-colored inner pages make for a high-quality, attractive, easy-to-read book. Recommended.
Drake’s and my semi-annual dentist appointment happened to fall on his birthday. He was an exemplary patient, and chose cookie dough flavored tooth polish, and bubble gum flavored fluoride treatment. I was gagging inside, but he seemed to really like them.
Did you know that the fluoride treatments in the trays are only 1 minute each, top and bottom? I remember them as endless misery from my childhood, or at least thirty minutes. I asked the assistant how long they were when we were kids. She said they were five minutes each. I think there are two possibilities. One, that my childhood mind magnified the experience since I found it so unpleasant. Or two, my childhood hygienist took the opportunity to go have a smoke and read a magazine, and just returned when she felt like it, leaving me soaking in nasty goo far longer than necessary. While I suspect the latter, maybe she was doing me a favor. I’ve only ever had one cavity, and every time I go to the dentist they gush over my teeth, which is strangely affirming to my esteem.
Since we had the morning to ourselves, I tried to make an adventure of it:
Child tooth cleaning: $101
Used book store: $20 + $1.48 for Magic Tree House #2–Drake’s birthday book.
Children’s store: $12 for clothes, $.27 for a birthday Matchbox car
Noodles & Co: $14.50
Ben & Jerry’s: $4.50
Morning spent happily tooling around with my 4yo, who was listening and not yelling: priceless.
(thanks to Pages Turned)
What are you reading right now? About to start Phillip Pullman’s Golden Compass
Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that? The Long Goodbye
What magazines do you have in your bathroom right now? Entertainment Weekly and The Atlantic
What’s the worst thing you were ever forced to read? Paper by a racist student in a writing class I taught.
What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone? Lately? Eat, Pray, Love.
Admit it, the librarians at your library know you on a first name basis, don’t they? They know my kids by first name, since they often hear me calling after them. They know my last name, since that’s what my holds are under.
Is there a book you absolutely love, but for some reason, people never think it sounds interesting, or maybe they read it and don’t like it at all? Gilead. Neither of my book groups liked it.
Do you read books while you eat? While you bathe? While you watch movies or TV? While you listen to music? While you’re on the computer? While you’re having sex? While you’re driving? While I’m eating, if I’m eating alone, which is rare.
When you were little, did other children tease you about your reading habits? Yes, I sat against a wall at recess with my book, and always finished my schoolwork quickly so I could pull out my book.
What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down? HP and the Deathly Hallows. For me, half the night was after 11pm.
Thanks to my friend, Blogenheimer, for a few more informative HP7 links, both of which contain lots of spoilers if you haven’t yet read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Finished ‘Potter’? Rowling tells what happens next
Stop your sobbing! More Potter to come, in which Rowling says she might do a Harry Potter encyclopedia. I think that idea would be a lot of fun if she serialized it somewhere and collected it later. Further, I bet that would make it available sooner.
After I finally finished HP7, I wanted to talk about it.
For further nerdish obsessing, my friend Blogenheimer suggested the Slate book club discussion of Harry Potter (warning: spoilers abound!)
I found the Entertainment Weekly Harry Potter issue curiously un-nuanced and borderline sycophantic. I enjoyed it anyway, especially this spoiler-riffic FAQ about the book.
