How to score online (or dramatically improve your odds, anyway)

One of the delights of having a blog is that it serves as a beacon in the night for lost and wayward souls. That, and spectres from my sordid past, up late, Googling of an evening. I've reconnected with a number of intimates over the past year, which pleases me no end. My New York boyfriend emailed me just yesterday; noting that I'd had extensive experience and some (ahem) success in the online arena, he asked if I'd be up for vetting his online profile and offering tweaking advice. A fixer-upper addict from way back, I jumped at the chance, especially since it would afford me the opportunity (oh, hell...the excuse) to lay out some of my general thoughts on successful online hook-ups.

WHERE TO GO

First off, I'm leery of Match. It's a real lowest-common-denominator website, so while you'll cast a wide net, you're likely to wind up with a good deal of flotsam & jetsom in it.

As I've mentioned on the blog, back in my datin' days, I liked Spring St. Networks (The Onion, Salon, etc) personals the best. They've since changed their pricing structure and in doing so, ruined a lot about what was loose and vaguely counter-culture about it so I don't know what their dating pool is like now, but if you're looking for someone like me, I'd more likely be there than match, matchmaker, tickle, etc. I did like their questionnaire far, far better than any of the others', and thought it brought out the quirk in everyone.

As for eHarmony, after two at-bats I can safely say that they're freaks. I won't even link to them, because no one who reads communicatrix on a regular basis is going to have any luck there.

On the other hand, if you've accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior, you might do quite well in that arena.

WHAT TO SAY

There are specifics to be addressed in anyone's profile, but there are commonalities that work across the board in online dating. Don't try to reinvent the wheel; or, to mix metaphors, at least understand the rules of grammar before you get creative about breaking them.

1. When in doubt, go with humility.

You're smart and accomplished! You make decent scratch! You're fit and interesting!

To say so is, at the worst, sudden death, and at the least unforgiveably dull, which is almost sudden death. Find clever, creative ways of showing that. Be secure in the knowledge that the girl of your dreams will be able to read between the lines. Be equally secure in the knowledge that if you toot your own horn, you will wind up with dates who are (or worse, a girlfriend who is) a colossal pain in the ass. Besides, if you're really articulate, shouldn't you be able to show rather than tell me? (And when I say "me," I mean someone like me; the communicatrix is very happily partnered.)

2. Lay off the (yawn) first person singular.

It's easy for a profile to turn into a laundry list where each item begins with "I", I like this, I hate that, I'm really good at this, I suck donkey dick when it comes to that. It's fine if your first (unpublished, un-uploaded) pass is full of "I"s because a first draft should be a sort of vomiting up on the page of everything you think you want to say. Your second (and third, and fourth) pass, however, should be about finessing and storytelling and captivating. Switch it up; get jiggy with the gerund! Spice things up with a question! 3. Unless you have a true Buddha-like nature, post a picture

Sometimes people don't want to post a picture because they really, truly are interested in the inside and want to keep ego out of the equation, focussing on those fine, inner qualities that make for a good partner.

Usually, however, not wanting to post a pic is motivated by one of two things:

(a) the poster is, for whatever reason, embarrassed by being online, feels vulnerable at the exposure putting him- or herself out there generates and wishes to retain some anonymity for the control it offers or...

(b) the poster is as ugly as a moldy stump in a bog

If you want to go the no-picture route, you will dramatically reduce the number of qualified responses you'll receive. Period. Most people want to see what they're getting. And if your argument is, "Well, I'm looking for someone like me, who feels the same way about posting a photo online that I do," that's dandy, go to eHarmony, with the rest of the homophobic sheeple who goosestep behind Herr Neil Clark Warren.

Remember, online dating is largely a numbers game (at least in the beginning stages of communication) and you need to generate the numbers to play. Even if you find someone whose picture appeals to you and whose prose stirs you, you still may not have that chemical "click" in person. You need to generate the good leads to close. For every lucky bastard like The BF who has the girl of his dreams email him within hours of his posting there are at 50 or 60 others whose profiles are moldering away on a server somewhere, slipping ever downward on the "fresh faces" continuum.

Which leads me to our next item...

4. Commit! Commit! Commit! (But be relaxed about it!)

Like most things in life, you'll get out of online dating (or dating, period) what you're willing to put into it. Dip a toe in the water and all you'll get is a wet toe.

So commit to the truth. Embrace that you have gone online because dammit, you're ready to meet someone, to open yourself up to the possibility of something real and great happening offline.

However, for the love of all that's holy, be cool about it. It's hard to define cool, but cool generally lays back and digs the scene. Cool is not pushy or demanding or, heaven forfend, desperate.

5. Keep your pickiness private

While it's fine to have preferences, really, you're better off letting them go, or at least keeping an open mind. Think of it this way: if you were in a bar, you wouldn't introduce yourself to people by saying, "Hi, I'm 6'2" and have multiple advanced degrees and have abs you could bounce a quarter off so I really don't like chicks who are short, fat and have only completed two years of college." You'd hang; you'd be polite. You'd be nice. You'd be cool (see #4).

I know this may seem to conflict with the whole Truth thing I'm always nattering on about, but really, it doesn't. With the exception of people who really want to procreate the old-fashioned way and are seeking same and/or perhaps certain members of 12-step programs, there's no need to start excluding people from the get-go with a race/income/whatever checklist.

If you're dead-set against it and feel you must post your do/don't list, be cool about other people doing the same. Don't get your undies in a bundle if that 23-year-old you emailed doesn't email you back, especially if she posted her own specs and you don't match them. I can't tell you how many emails I got from men who were 10 years outside of my very generous parameters (on both ends) because they (ahem) were sure they were the exception to the rule, since they looked (ahem) very young for their age. They didn't, and besides, I really wasn't interested in someone who was 20 years older (or younger) than I was. Which brings us to...

(6) Never, ever, ever say you look really young for your age

If you do, people can tell by looking at your picture. If you don't, you're worse off than if you'd kept your trap shut. And not having a picture posted doesn't make that kind of bloviating any more attractive.

SUMMARY

Online dating is no worse and, once you get used to it, possibly a little better than its offline counterpart. As with any new venture, I'd suggest thoroughly familiarizing yourself with it, the competition, especially, before taking the plunge. Read through profiles, see who you'd date if you were on the other side. Read what you can about those who've been there before you.

And dig deep for those old-time connections. You never know where you might cadge a little free coaching...

xxx c

Book review: Requiem for a Dream

I was introduced to Hubert Selby, Jr. via the movies, specifically the 1989 film adaptation of his debut novel, Last Exit to Brooklyn. Politely put, that movie beat the crap out of me. As I staggered out of the theater, my faux-cosmopolitan self reduced to a sorry tangle of nerve endings, I remember thinking this probably wasn't the best movie to have suggested for a sunny Saturday outing with Dad. The joke, however, was on me: Dad had known exactly what he was getting into; he'd read Last Exit when it came out, in 1964. When I was three.

I felt the same way, jangly, tense, vaguely ill, after seeing the 2000 film version of Requiem for a Dream, so much so that it took five years and running into a $1 used-paperback copy of the book at a thrift store to get me to give it a maybe. Because that's what I do with the "maybes", stick them on an ever-growing, three-dimensional "to read" list somewhere near the bed. Mostly, they molder away unread until they're trundled back to the mouth end of the thrift store (or sometimes, the used-book store, where they pay me in more books I'll never have time enough to read). But this kept nagging and nagging at me; what sort of source material inspires a director to do that on the screen? How do you make despair and addiction and wild-eyed, groundless hope so real on the page that someone else can translate it so perfectly into a completely different medium?

Or is Darren Aronofsky just a total, fucking genius?

Aronofsky knows his way around a camera, alright, but everything in the movie is, amazingly, on the page. And unlike the filmmaker's language of jump shots, pace, music, film stock, the novelist's language is just...language. Selby dispenses with pesky, confining rules of grammar and punctuation, using crazy, run-on sentences and run-on paragraphs and sometimes run-on pages to lay bare the urgent, non-stop hum of desperate junkymind. You clock the descent even you're drawn into the story, with the result that each step downward, while horrifying, makes perfect sense.

Like any language vastly different from our current one, it takes some will and effort to get into Requiem. I liken it to Shakespeare, where, even if the actors are really great and the production top-notch, the first 10 minutes can feel like a bunch of well-dressed chimps nattering on in some imaginary, improvisitory language with too much sound and fury: they might as well be hurling poop at the audience to communicate their feelings. Then, once your give yourself over to the experience, your ears adjust and it's almost like were listening to things at the wrong speed before the curtain rose.

It's a difficult journey, this trip into the heart of despair. I didn't need to read it for the cautionary tale, either: I grew up with a healthy fear of addiction and the idea of using needles for sport is anathema. The capacity for self-delusion, though, is a thing it never hurts to be reminded of. Especially in these times of wild-eyed lying by them what's in charge (and willful looking away by them what's not), it's good to dip into some serious truth via this grim, almost-30-year-old paean to it.

xxx
c

UPDATE (12/3/08): In a shameless and transparent act of caving, I've been replacing book and DVD links with Amazon affiliate links throughout the site. I MAKE MONEY WHEN YOU CLICK ON THESE. Like, a full 1/4 cent or something. Whatever. I'm happy if you borrow it from a friend or the library, or buy it used (I like half.com and alibris online) or, praise Jeebus!, from your local independent dead tree retailer. Seriously. The main thing is, read. Absorb. Enjoy. Pass it on.

Engagement chicken

Sundays have always been tricky for me, a love/hate, digging-the-Now-whilst-dreading-the-Future kind of proposition. Even as all my days become like all my other days (the curse of the freelancer), on Sunday, I still want a little something extra in the way of comfort: an extra half-hour in that toasty bed divot, a higher ratio of silence to noise in the house, a little more lazy-ass crossword-wrangling and a little less hard-ass monkey-working. Sunday is a good TV night and I think that's no accident: people want to shore up the goodness to brace themselves for the onslaught of stormy Monday.

Me, I see no better way to do it than with an ovenful of roast chicken. It's relatively inexpensive and easy to make, makes the whole house smell fantastic (unless you're a vegetarian, in which case I imagine it makes the whole house smell like death warmed over) and, unless you are a complete pig-monster, gifts you with delicious leftovers for the next couple of days.

I'm constantly in search of the Ultimate Roast Chicken Recipe, but trial-and-error has proven the genius of a high initial temp with the chicken cooked breast-side-down to sear the outside and seal in the juices, followed by a reduced tempurature for the remainder of cook time with the chicken in a more seemly, backside-down position. I'm behind the use of a rack (chicken cooked in juices puts the "ew" in "stewed") and agin' the use of the foil tent.

As of last night, I have also joined the ranks of devotees for an adaptation of a Marcella Hazan recipe that's come to be known as "Engagement Chicken," not because I like fruity monikers or am looking for good matrimonial juju, but because it produces the moistest, juiciest, delicious-est roasty-toasty chicken it's been my pleasure to consume outside of a restaurant extraordinary enough to know how to cook the simple things well. And as cooked in a convection oven (thank Jeebus for The BF and his expensive tastes in kitchen accoutrements), it may even match it:

Engagement Chicken

(Adapted from Marcella Hazan's More Classic Italian Cooking)

1 whole chicken (approx. 3 lb.) 2 medium lemons Fresh lemon juice (1/2 cup) Kosher or sea salt Ground black pepper

Place rack in upper third of oven and preheat to 400ºF*. Wash chicken inside and out with cold water, remove the giblets, then let the chicken drain, cavity down, in a colander until it reaches room temp (about 15 minutes). Pat dry with paper towels. Pour lemon juice all over the chicken (inside and outside). Season with salt and pepper. Prick the whole lemons three times with a fork and place deep inside the cavity. (Tip: If lemons are hard, roll on countertop with your palm to get juices flowing.) Place the bird breast-side down on a rack in a roasting pan, lower heat to 350ºF and bake uncovered for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and turn it breast-side up (use wooden spoons!); return it to oven for 35 minutes more. Test for doneness, a meat thermometer inserted in the thigh should read 180ºF, or juices should run clear when chicken is pricked with a fork. Continue baking if necessary. Let chicken cool for a few minutes before carving. Serve with juices.

*If you're using a convection oven, lower temps by 25º. Cooking time will be a little less per lb. than usual.

Supposedly, the wimmens who make this chicken for their mens end up with hardware on their digits faster than you kin say "finger-lickin' good!" Me, I just got a Band-Aidâ„¢ on that finger (casualty of spaghetti squash wrangling the night before), but the rest of 'em I couldn't keep out of the lemony schmaltz at the bottom of the roasting pan. Throw a bunch of carrots and onions (and sweet potatoes, if you're not on the SCD) underneath the rack in yer roasting pan and LORDY, you won't care if you're engaged, divorced or married-up in the seventh circle of hell.

IT'S THAT GOOD, PEOPLE!!!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled buzzkill Monday.

xxx c

PHOTO: "Kip", by _sammy_, as uploaded to Flickr

TAGS: engagement chicken, Marcella Hazan, SCD, recipes, chicken

The Ditty Bops

Have I mentioned how my mildly (ha!) obsessive-compulsive nature manifests itself in my car? Well, firstly, it shows up in my serial purchasing of the same car. (Corollas ain't sexy, but boy, are they dependable.) In my annoying moving-around of objects (garage-door clicker, change for meters, Stim-U-Dents) from one storage cubby to another in search of the ergonomically perfect resting place.

But mainly, it manifests itself in the constant replaying of whatever CD "sticks" in the player. For awhile, I listened to a lot of Madeline Peyroux. Before that, I listened to even more William Shatner.

Lately, as in, for the past month, it's been all about the Ditty Bops.

As usual, I am late to the game. I first heard of them via Koga on my other bloggy home, b.la. Koga is both way geekier and way cooler than I can ever hope to be, so you know the Ditty Bops are happening. But according to The BF, The DBs have also been featured on Prairie Home Companion, which is, um, pretty dorky and not very hip, albeit groovy in its own way.

So you see, the Ditty Bops are clearly the perfect band: quirky, musically adept and unclassifiable. They are certainly a little bit country, there's a lovely little waltz called "Two Left Feet" and plenty of pickin' & strummin' throughout. But they are also a little bit Hawaiian ("Wishful Thinking"), a little bit Tin Pan Alley (nifty nouvelle-vaudeville cover of "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate") and plenty perverto-pop, that cheerful, foot-tapping stuff that has one smiling and singing along, even as it diverts immediate attention from the smart, darker lyrics.

The Ditty Bops remind me a lot of another fave weirdo girl group, The Roches. Close harmony, a multiplicity of influences, an appreciation for old and useful things, a deft hand with lyrics and arrangement (both musical and vocal) and that occasional freaky-deaky stress on the odd syllable. Maggie, Terre and Suzzy (kick-ass in concert, btw, which I understand the Ditty Bops are, too) came out of the gates so strong with their first two albums, it was almost inevitable that follow-up albums fell a bit short.* It'll be interesting to see where the Ditty Bops take their act.

In the meantime, of course, I'll just hit "replay"...

xxx c

*If anyone can lend me the later/newer albums so I can be proved wrong, I will gladly fork over the dough to buy them ALL!

Photo of the Ditty Bops in concert at Bricktops by Jason DeFillippo, via blogging.la

Tiny picture of the Ditty Bops' actual album from Barnes & Noble, because FUCK YOU, amazon, I FUCKING HATE YOU!!!

Last Days

While I am sorely tempted to dismiss Last Days with a simple, one-sentence review (Lost Hour and 37 Minutes? Last Days and Days and Days?), I am a big enough fan of Gus Van Sant that I feel I should say a few words in this movie's defense. First off, there's some of the bitchin'-est cinematography you'll ever want to see. The Pacific Northwest is as much a character as any of the human beings in the film, and that sucker looks as cold and mystical and unbending as the day is long, not to mention like it could give a flying crap about any of the smackheads, Jesus freaks, record industry leeches and other hangers-on that populate the filmic landscape.

Second off, there are a few pretty great scenes, "great" as in "bordering on genius." Or rather, there are a few piercing, genius moments within some really overlong scenes. It is a tremendous luxury to be able to lock down wide and burn film on good-ass acting; it is a tremendous pain in the ass, literally, when the ass in question is parked on an ahhht-house seat, to have to watch the result of this little ahhht experiment in its entirety.

However, if you want to know what it feels like to do a lot of heroin, hooba-dooba, is this your movie. Because I haven't even done heroin and from watching this movie, I don't have to, since I'm now pretty sure shooting up heroin involves spending a lot of time in your interior world, which I do already, and eating a lot of Cocoa Rice Krispies and boxed mac-'n'-cheese, which is not allowed on my diet.

So according to the official website, Last Days is the natural outgrowth of the "elliptical style" Van Sant has been working in since Gerry and Elephant, neither of which I feel I have to see now because if they are the ramping-up pieces to this movie, that means they are like inferior heroin, and what the hell's the point of that?

I say quit going in circles and start doing films that are a natural outgrowth of your good movies. Or do more movies that are like drugs that I like, say, a cocaine series or a painkiller series.

Now that's ahhht.

xxx c

TECHNORATI TAGS:Lost Days, Gus Van Sant, reviews

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

I didn't exactly have to be dragged kicking & screaming to "the pants movie" but it wasn't first on my list of must-see movies this summer. Lily, the instigator, & I generally go for darker fare, but it's been a tough month or two and hey, I totally dug another weird Lily suggestion, so I figured what the hell? If nothing else, it'd be great snark material for ye olde communicatrix.com.

Only it wasn't. I was bawling (quietly) before the credits finished rolling and pretty much weeping (as quietly as I could) through the rest of the film, when I wasn't smiling, that is. Lily's experience was much like mine, as was L.A. Jan's. In fact, I suspect this will be the reaction of most of the women who can get over the embarrassing, chick-lit title and get down with the recommendation. Because The Pants Movie is that rarest of rarities these days: a smart, funny, female coming-of-age story that doesn't talk down to its audience, just to them.

The movie weaves together the stories of four fast friends spending their first summer apart. The infamous pants of the famously horrible title are a pair of jeans that magically fit all four, though the girls vary in size as much as they do temperament. And here's the thing: not only does every one of them play her part straight down the middle, without commenting or playing at it, the four are authentically wonderful together. You absolutely buy that they have been together since they were born (their moms met in prenatal yoga) and you absolutely understand why they have stayed, and will stay, once the lessons and separation of summer are over, friends.

I have a few minor quibbles, mainly to do with the writers saddling poor Tibby (Amber Tamblyn) with a baby Yoda (Jenna Boyd) for her slice of the story. But Tamblyn and Boyd are great together (and individually) nonetheless, as is the entire cast, especially the other girls: Alexis Bledel, America Ferrara and Blake Lively.

Throw in some chewy, eye-candy extras (picture-postcard shots of the Greek Islands, reasonably non-gratuitous shots of Michael Rady and Mike Vogel with their shirts off) and you have quite possibly the best summer movie of the summer.

Even if that heinous title makes it the most embarrassing one to recommend.

xxx
c

Book review: Home Land

Home Land is filled with great characters, their sharply-observed characteristics and film-worthy comic exchanges. There is no end, apparently, to Sam Lipsyte's invention, and dude not only has an eagle eye for the bullshit we try to pass off as character, he can turn a phrase like a fine (albeit filthy) woodworker turns a fancy-ass chair leg.

Oh, and final disclaimer: while I did laugh in many parts of this sharply-written comic novel, I suspect I am too dumb to get some of the jokes, as (a) The Boyfriend, who is demonstrably smarter than yours truly, laughed far oftener (and more heartily) than yours truly and (b) I had to look up several words in my handy, bedside, pocket-Oxford dictionary, which will kill a joke faster than you can say "A piece of string walks into a bar."

So maybe I'm jaded or maybe I'm stoopit or maybe a little of both, but I felt like Home Land, while undeniably smart and clever and funny and, to an extent, true, had the same fragmented feel of so much postmodern fiction written by authors raised on TV and film.

Briefly, it's the story of a too-smart fringe dweller who ramps up to his high school reunion by submitting a cavalcade of submissions to the alumni newsletter cataloguing the sad truths of his loser life. Sad, funny truths. Funny, cinematic truths.

I have nothing against imagery that leaps off a page, and I'm not some freaky purist who rails against the corruption of sacred text by the evil cinema. To the contrary, I actually think that occasionally, the movies do a better job of telling the story than their source material. But I can't help but feel as though, more and more, smart, funny writers are writing novels with an eye to how their material will play out on the screen. It's been awhile since I read a new book that read...well, like a book. And I'm old and curmudgeonly enough to miss 'em.

xxx
c

UPDATE (12/3/08): In a shameless and transparent act of caving, I've been replacing book and DVD links with Amazon affiliate links throughout the site. I MAKE MONEY WHEN YOU CLICK ON THESE. Like, a full 1/4 cent or something. Whatever. I'm happy if you borrow it from a friend or the library, or buy it used (I like half.com and alibris online) or, praise Jeebus!, from your local independent dead tree retailer. Seriously. The main thing is, read. Absorb. Enjoy. Pass it on.

Sin City

Sin City is slick and violent and over-the-top in every conceivable way, from story to prosthetics to set design. It's dark and grim (although not entirely humorless); despite its portrayal of exceptionally strong women, it's misogynistic (the strong women are either scantily-clad prostitutes or scantily-clad innocents dressed like prostitutes). It's every bit as cartoony as the comic from whence it sprang.

And yet...

And yet, that's exactly what makes it so good. I harp on about strong sense of place being my favorite feature in any particular feature, but really, that's what a great movie does: establish its own universe and hew to it like a motherfucker. Sin City is its own sleek, black-&-white (with carefully chosen flashes of color) world, darker than the darkest live-action noir, crafty and shifting and full of delicious evil and the chumps chosen to fight it.

It's not a nice world; it's not a place the squeamish will want to visit. Don't expect any big emotional involvement, either; this is a big, fat, gorgeous cartoon, and maintains a kind of formal distance as such. The Boyfriend called it disposable entertainment, and it is: for better or worse, it's not going to stick with you (and considering some of the grotesque imagery, that's probably a good thing).

But it is spectacularly realized and engaging and worth seeing, for the non-squeamish, on the big screen. With maybe a DVD rental upon release to check out what's under the hood...

xxx
c

3 Women

I don't know if it's possible to make a film like 3 Women anymore. Even Robert Altman seems to have problems making Robert Altman films these days: studios aren't falling over themselves to fork over money, even relatively small hunks of it, for a movie with no script and no stars based on a decidedly low-concept pitch. But this was the 1970s, thank god, and Altman had the Hollywood currency to score the money and people he needed to follow a hunch out to the California desert.

He describes his process of (literally) dreaming up this "painting with music" on the commentary track of the 2004 Criterion DVD release of the picture, and from the dream that started it to the pitch to Fox it's one of the more interesting peeks under the tent it's been my time-sucking pleasure to experience in awhile.

Altman calls it a story about identity theft, which it is, on the surface: an odd, waifish girl (Sissy Spacek) latches onto another lost soul (Shelley Duvall), who has herself cobbled together a sad simulacrum of a life from the instructive example of women's magazines, TV and other fleeting media impressions. But it is as much a story of authenticity and connection (and the sorrow in the lack of it) as anything.

It takes trust and courage (and maybe a touch of lunacy, these days) to live a Real Life, much as it takes the same collection of traits (plus maybe a touch more lunacy) to make a film this way. There's no room for ego in a real life, and while there's obviously some ego involved in shepherding a gigantic project from conception through to completion, that ego has to step out of the way when it's time to actually tell the story. Altman describes a level of collaboration and openness in the assemblage of 3 Women that seems extraordinary for any director, especially one of his stature. He's hardly humble, a humble man doesn't walk into Alan Ladd's office and ask for a million-five to make a picture about identity theft with relative unknowns. But he's got enough confidence in his own voice to let other voices make themselves heard where it will be helpful.

For instance, Altman talks at length about Duvall's talent in playing the excruciatingly sad Millie, a self-deluded, universally ignored (if not despised) worker at a low-end desert "health" spa who thinks pre-packaged shrimp cocktail is the height of casual dinner party elegance, as her ability to show "the pink side": that soft, tender part of us that makes us so vulnerable, we never willingly show it to anyone. And she does, making a fool of herself over and over again for the full length of the picture without ever winking at it or playing the clown. It's almost unbearable to watch at times, just seeing her full yellow skirt caught in the door of her bright yellow Pinto every time she climbs in is enough to break your heart, and yet you can't look away: her sweetness and truth is that unusual and that compelling.

While the individual elements and their alchemic combination are just about perfect there's still a good lot of arty-farty to get through in 3 Women. I wish there was a way to turn off the atonal soundtrack Altman was so taken with, and as the story devolves into full-on surrealism in the third act, I confess to becoming a little agitated and distracted. But, flawed though it is (and it's not bumping Nashville off my Top 20 list anytime soon), i am still, some 20-odd years after first viewing 3 Women, moved to revisit this odd little filmic tone poem.

Besides, with the advent of DVD subtitling-on-demand, I can finally catch all that good Altman dialogue I missed in the theater...

xxx
c

ADDITIONAL TECHNORATI TAGS: Robert Altman, 1970s film, Shelley Duvall

Book review: Main Street

It's hard for me to believe that Main Street was ever a groundbreaking work of fiction, but then, it's hard for me to believe that I ever thought 256MB was a lot of RAM.

Was there ever a time when we (America, not the royal "we") weren't aware of our dissatisfaction with the status quo? Of the stultifying, enervating, soul-killing small-mindedness of small-town American life? And really, even way back when, were 500+ pages what it took to get the point across? I mean, if the definitive book on English grammar and structure can clock in at just over a hundred, how much space need be devoted to descriptions of uninspired home decor, gorgeous Minnesota in the raw and the dialectic journey of a main character who is more stock mouthpiece than compelling, flesh-and-foible heroine?

On the other hand, given the current state of domestic affairs, I can easily imagine some fellow American "a-yup"ing his or her way through Main Street, thumping the denizens of Gopher Prairie for being tasteless, visionless rubes before heading out in the Suburban to grouse about the ridiculousness of gay marriage and the righteousness of those who condemn it over an MGD and a blooming onion at The Outback. So there's probably still a need for Main Street, or something like it.

I'm casting my vote for the latter. It takes a level of determination (or insomnia) for me to slog through Sinclair Lewis that, say, Theodore Dreiser doesn't require. (I'm just 50 or so pages into Babbitt now, and granted, it's more engaging than the obvious polemic that is Main Street, but it's still...well, windy.) Jane Austen wrote scathing social commentaries that still stand up as ripping good yarns. Even Dickens crafted a more compelling read than Lewis and he took at least twice the ink to do it in.

What's most irksome to me is that I used up credit at my favorite used book store to buy a crumbling, yellowed copy when I could have purchased an EZ-on-the-old-eyes Dover Thrift Edition for just $3.50. Or better yet, read it online or even downloaded as an eBook, for free. It's not bad idea to revisit the classics once or twice in a lifetime and I'm glad someone's preserving copies so I can do so, but good authorial intentions, and Nobel Peace Prize, notwithstanding, I just don't see Main Street as a wise allocation of precious bookshelf real estate.

xxx
c

UPDATE (12/3/08): In a shameless and transparent act of caving, I've been replacing book and DVD links with Amazon affiliate links throughout the site. I MAKE MONEY WHEN YOU CLICK ON THESE. Like, a full 1/4 cent or something. Whatever. I'm happy if you borrow it from a friend or the library, or buy it used (I like half.com and alibris online) or, praise Jeebus!, from your local independent dead tree retailer. Seriously. The main thing is, read. Absorb. Enjoy. Pass it on.

Fat Actress

Proof that hilarity flows from the top down, Fat Actress is loaded with very funny people (Rachael Harris, Mike McDonald, guests like Mark Curry, even Kirstie Alley herself, once upon a time) who manage to be about as funny as the omelette pan soaking in my sink. So what happened?

Hubris + money + a whole lot of people agreeing that the emporer's fanny looks great in those Prada pants = thirty minutes of not just winking at the joke, but pummeling it into unrecognition with the obvious stick. It's the saddest, most desperately unfunny thing it's been my displeasure to watch for some time. I've got a little thing about wasted potential, you see, and this show is throwing it out the window by the bucketful. Sad, sad, sad.

I don't know why Showtime would elect to air the egregious wrong that is Fat Actress for free on Yahoo! TV; it can't possibly be to gain subscribers. Maybe this is all an elaborate set-up to be aired on Punk'd. Oh, wait, wrong network.

Anyway, thanks to Gawker for the heads up and the link.

I think...

xxx c

Book review: Clumsy

I blather on quite frequently about The Truth and my devotion to it, but I'm starting to think I should either start writing graphic novels or get down with being forever relegated to the piker scrap heap of truth-telling history.

This revelation courtesy of Clumsy, Jeffrey Brown's first graphic novel. It chronicles in gorgeous, embarrassingly painful detail the rise and fall (and rise and fall and rise and plummet) of Brown's year-long relationship with a woman whom he initially writes off as a sort of "dirty hippy."

One night in the close proximity of a shared sleeping bag blows that perception to smithereens (I'm starting to see why the kids like their camping); immediately, the two are off to the races on their long-distance love journey to madness and back again.

To me, the most interesting aspect of Clumsy (other than its blatant honesty) is that the story is told out of sequence. Brown opens the book with the strip "My First Night With Theresa" and immediately follows it with "My Last Night With Kristyn"; having those writing-on-the-wall, it-tolls-for-thee panels of doom of the latter butt up against sunny optimism of the former the casts an interesting, grayish pall over the proceedings. I felt forced to look at this relationship with a more analytical than voyeuristic eye. (Or maybe that's just me being nutty, it's been known to happen.)

The fascinating thing about Brown is his dichotomy. I was struck over and over not only by his fretting over the state of the union and his poignant longing for the phone to ring, but by his boundless courage in laying it all out there like that. In an interview, Brown discusses the separation from character that he goes through to write, basically, he backs away from his characters and goes into author mode, which allows him to get the distance he needs to best tell the story.

Brown has even made sport of (and additional cash off of) his own sensitivity by releasing Be A Man, a parody edition of his own work several years later where he retells the Clumsy story from a more traditional, macho-boy perspective.

The communicatrix is kinda cheap and all (she checked out Clumsy from the glorious deliciousness that is the BHPL), but for three bucks, I think I can let my curiosity get the better of me just this once.

Besides, sensitivity is sexy and worth a visit, but sensitivity coupled with crazy-ass bravery? That's where I wanna live, baby; you gotta support that shit.

xxx
c

P.S. Lots more cool stuff at Jeffrey Brown's website, which he shares with some other great illustrators.

UPDATE (12/3/08): In a shameless and transparent act of caving, I've been replacing book and DVD links with Amazon affiliate links throughout the site. I MAKE MONEY WHEN YOU CLICK ON THESE. Like, a full 1/4 cent or something. Whatever. I'm happy if you borrow it from a friend or the library, or buy it used (I like half.com and alibris online) or, praise Jeebus!, from your local independent dead tree retailer. Seriously. The main thing is, read. Absorb. Enjoy. Pass it on.

AFI Top 100

I know, I know: we've been meme-krazy here at communicatrix lately. I promise to get back to the more substantial and/or hilarious issues on my mind v. soon, but in the meantime, my take on Ed Champion's AFI Top 100 throw-down: what you've not/seen, how much of a loser you think you are for having dug deeply into the canon and what you think of the whole damned thing (okay, I added that, what, you expected me to keep my trap shut?) 1. CITIZEN KANE (1941) Yeah, okay. It's a perfect. It broke all kinds of ground. It still feels like a duty choice.

2. CASABLANCA (1942) Ditto. And while we're on the subject, where the hell is Notorious?

3. THE GODFATHER (1972) Finally!

4. GONE WITH THE WIND (1939) Ripping Good Yarn, alright, alright. #4? No.

5. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962) Ditto on yarn factor. Possible Top 20 entry.

6. THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) Never all the way through without commercials. Does that count?

7. THE GRADUATE (1967) "Plastics" and Anne Bancroft notwithstanding, should this really be in the Top Ten?

8. ON THE WATERFRONT (1954) Can't say whether I would have named names or not, but hard to watch the same way, y'know?

9. SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993) Needed to be made, glad Spielberg made it, but 15 years later, I mostly remember Ralph Fiennes.

10. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952) Should be #2. Or #1 in list of "Best Musicals." Hey, where is the list of Best Musicals, anyway?

11. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) Pitch-perfect. Oddly ahead of its time.

12. SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950) That's some freaky, freaky shit. Makes me wish Billy Wilder had had a crack at Day of the Locust.

13. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957) This is the whistling one, right? (Okay, okay...I'll watch it.)

14. SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959) Call me an ass, but I don't see it ("Colleen, you're an ass.").

15. STAR WARS (1977) This, for example, should totally be ahead of #14.

16. ALL ABOUT EVE (1950) "Kill the people." (That's French for "Genius through and through.")

17. THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951) This probably makes me un-American, and Katharine Hepburn was a classy broad and all, but for me, she's video rental poison.

18. PSYCHO (1960) The first half hour could have its own spot on Top 100 list. Oh, the sense of place! The inchoate longing!

19. CHINATOWN (1974) A perfect film. (#19? 19!?! GFY, AFI!!!)

20. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975) Hmmm...I liked this an awful lot when I was 14. Of course, I also liked menthol cigarettse and Billy Jack a lot when I was 14.

21. THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940) The book was better. A lot better.

22. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) The Citizen Kane of its day.

23. THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) Pretty great, except for the egregious miscasting of Mary "No Ass" Astor. Did Huston read the novel first? Did he miss the sexy, femme-fatale part of the character breakdown? In what universe is Mary Astor hot?

24. RAGING BULL (1980) Um, yeah. Should have won "Best Everything."

25. E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982) Not my thing, but I can see why it's on here.

26. DR. STRANGELOVE (1964) Ditto. (Okay, so I'm a bourgeois freak. What's your point?)

27. BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967) Let me introduce you to the buena, buena.

28. APOCALYPSE NOW (1979) I know this is heresy, but I preferred his wife's docu.

29. MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939) Move a bunch of other stuff up and add Bells Are Ringing.

30. THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948) Yes, please. We need many, many stinking badges.

31. ANNIE HALL (1977) And Hannah and Her Sisters. And Crimes and Misdemeanors. And (yes, I swear to you) Interiors.

32. THE GODFATHER PART II (1974) Should be #2...or maybe #1. I go back & forth between them. The most American of American stories.

33. HIGH NOON (1952) Please replace with Shane. Or Johnny Guitar. Or Hang 'Em High.

34. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962) Liked it, but the book is better.

35. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934) Crackerjack script, boy howdy.

36. MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969) Yes, please. We're walkin', here!

37. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946) "Hello...Rocket Video?"

38. DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944) Kicks ass, which is why it should be in Quadrant Two, not down here in the 50th percentile ghetto.

39. DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965) For sheer scope, maybe, but Lawrence of Arabia deservedly resides many notches higher.

40. NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959) Pitch-perfect thriller. More of a confection than Psycho, but a much better ending.

41. WEST SIDE STORY (1961) Hmmm...nah.

42. REAR WINDOW (1954) I could have crossed over for Grace Kelly. Hell, I could have crossed over for any of Edith Head's outfits for her. "Preview of coming attractions," indeed.

43. KING KONG (1933) Has anyone seen this all the way through?

44. THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915) Every time I flip over the Criterion box and see the running time, I get tired.

45. A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951) That whole naming names thing really casts a pall, doesn't it?

46. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) What does it say when you remember the MAD magazine parody better than the movie itself?

47. TAXI DRIVER (1976) Sneaks up on you, doesn't it?

48. JAWS (1975) It's politically incorrect of me, I know, but I think this tops Schindler's List any day.

49. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937) Not sure if I've actually seen this or just seen so many scenes I think I've seen it.

50. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969) Uhhhhhhh...okay. Yes.

51. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940) Enh. Still, the one movie Kate Hepburn really works in, to me.

52. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953) I'd have to watch it again, without a fever and with my full attention. But I have it on good authority this is a good bet.

53. AMADEUS (1984) Really? Good, but...really?

54. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930) Never saw it. Never read it. Bad English major! Bad! Bad!

55. THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965) Yes, please. Just not so high.

56. M*A*S*H (1970) Not bad, but I'd replace it with Nashville. In fact, where the hell is Nashville?

57. THE THIRD MAN (1949) There are 56 movies ahead of this masterpiece!?! AFI, you've shredded your remaining bit of credibility.

58. FANTASIA (1940) Don't be dissin' my dancing hippos.

59. REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955) Good, but Nick Ray did better.

60. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) A better ride than the ride.

61. VERTIGO (1958) Yes. Although it might just be me wanting to live in S.F. of the '50s.

62. TOOTSIE (1982) Yes! Yes! Yes!

63. STAGECOACH (1939) Please replace with The Magnificent Seven.

64. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) I'm suspicious of things I loved when I was 16.

65. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991) Yeah. And I was glad it won all those awards, too.

66. NETWORK (1976) I'd watch it over and over just to see the great Beatrice Straight deliver that speech.

67. THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962) Been awhile, but yeah, okay.

68. AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951) Please replace with Cabaret.

69. SHANE (1953) Resisted this for 41 years. My loss.

70. THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971) Kick-ass thriller.

71. FORREST GUMP (1994) Vomit.

72. BEN-HUR (1959) Please replace with The Terminator.

73. WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939) Please replace with Rebecca.

74. THE GOLD RUSH (1925) Yeah, yeah, he eats his shoe. Please replace with Night at the Opera.

75. DANCES WITH WOLVES (1990) Now, seriously. Seriously!

76. CITY LIGHTS (1931) Okay...swap this out with The Gold Rush and make Night at the Opera #76.

77. AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973) Again, if I liked it that much when I was 12...

78. ROCKY (1976) I'll back these losers up on this one. A perfect movie, although that music sounds pretty cheesy now.

79. THE DEER HUNTER (1978) The ordering of this list staggers me as much as what's not/on it.

80. THE WILD BUNCH (1969) Mmmm...nah.

81. MODERN TIMES (1936) Fine. But all these Chaplin flicks are knocking Woody Allen pix off the chart, dammit!

82. GIANT (1956) Yawn. (Except for the ever-delicious Mercedes McCambridge, of course.)

83. PLATOON (1986) Please replace with Full Metal Jacket.

84. FARGO (1996) Hallelujah.

85. DUCK SOUP (1933) I'm more of a Opera/Races gal, but okay.

86. MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1935) Never saw it. (Ducking now.)

87. FRANKENSTEIN (1931) And it's short, too!

88. EASY RIDER (1969) I still harbor the maddest crush ever on Peter Fonda.

89. PATTON (1970) Yeah, okay. This, I get.

90. THE JAZZ SINGER (1927) Eventually, okay? O-kay!

91. MY FAIR LADY (1964) Okay...what?

92. A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951) Who's more beautiful, Monty or Liz?

93. THE APARTMENT (1960) Many lovely scenes.

94. GOODFELLAS (1990) My ex-husband's perfect one-word review: GreatFellas

95. PULP FICTION (1994) I'm a Jackie Brown fan. Never got this one.

96. THE SEARCHERS (1956) Embarrassed to say I've never even heard of it.

97. BRINGING UP BABY (1938) Cary Grant, yes. Katharine Hepburn, no.

98. UNFORGIVEN (1992) The other good western.

99. GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER (1967) Bleh.

100. YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942) Has anyone under the age of 50 who has not been in film school seen this?

Original AFI Top 100 list here, so you can grow your own. Way better Top 100 list from Entertainment Weekly by way of Lists of Bests.

And now, we return you to your previously scheduled diatribe.

xxx c

TECHNORATI TAGS: AFI, Top 100 Movies, Best of lists, memes

Careless Love

I don't remember what I was doing the first time I heard Madeleine Peyroux, but I remember what I was thinking: wasn't Billie Holiday dead before Leonard Cohen started writing songs? Okay, so maybe there was a period of overlap. But since then, and many times over, the astonishing similarity between young, whitey-white Peyroux and the long-gone First Lady of the Blues has been the lead comment when post-track chat commences.

Singers like Peyroux (and k.d. lang and Megan Mullally and even young Norah Jones, now that I think of it) make me happy because they combine great pipes with great taste and Actual Life Experience that Results In A Point of View. As L.A. Jan and I were lamenting just yesterday (we're both hooked on "Idol" now), Kelly Clarkson has an astonishing instrument, but to what end? Fomenting preteen unrest with pop claptrap? And don't get me started on the Queens of Oversing: Celine, Mariah and just about every contemporary country singer you can name. You couldn't pay me to listen to one of those hideous power ballads and it's not because I'm rolling in dough these days.

Careless Love isn't a perfect album, I get the feeling that sometimes Peyroux and her producer were coasting a little on the charm of her voice, but it's damned close. And a trio of tracks alone are worth the price of admission: the so-sad, slow and sweet "I'll Look Around"; the sexy, playful "Don't Wait Too Long"; and my current obsession, "Dance Me To The End Of Love." I've tried and tried to love Leonard Cohen but I just can't deal unless one of the ladies, Jennifer Warnes, k.d., Madeleine, is doing the heavy lifting. Fortunately, the list of Cohen covers is long and mighty, but we can always use more truly fabu artists like Peyroux tackling the canon.

xxx c

Has Been

WARNING: The review you are about to read was written by a musical moron. That is, by the way, my standard caveat. Having grown up on a steady diet of showtunes, Top 40 and Bad 1960's White People Music (Mitch Miller! Steve and Eydie! Up With People!), I am woefully unqualified to judge anything as "cool" or "uncool" unless it resides firmly at one or the other end of the spectrum. And frankly, if it hadn't been for the stray Ella LP slipped onto the phonograph stack or my cool Uncle George's lifesaving, intermittent interjection of Led Zeppelin and the Beatles (kind of musical triage, now that I think about it), I might not even be able to discern that much.

But even a musical moron knows the instant she hears One For The Ages. There's something visceral about hitting the sweet spot that anyone can see: that piece of art that reaches across the room and grabs you by the heart; that novel that seems to be reading you; and that song...oh, that song...

As the person who turned me on to Has Been put it, "It's oddly compelling, isn't it?" You got that right. With songs about his dead wife floating in the swimming pool, the off-again relationship he has with an estranged daughter and arrangements that make you wish the word "eclectic" was not so overused as to make it useless in defining this, Has Been is odd to the nth degree. And yet, I have been unable to remove the CD from my car player since I put it in a week ago.

The outrageous success of this album is probably due in no small part to Ben Folds, whom the kids tell me is the opposite of a musical moron. I mean, I heard William Shatner's first go-round and all I can say is that I ain't putting 'Windmills of Your Mind' on a mix tape anytime soon. Still, William "Bill, to you, Ben" Shatner's honesty is pretty staggering, especially in light of the rather difficult truths that make up his life.

My current favorite cut is 'Real,' the last track on the album. It's weirdly humble and pompous all at once. Shatner talks his way through it, as he has every track I've ever heard him on since 'Windmills,' but damn if that boy doesn't have some fierce rhythm, all the same.

Maybe that's the appeal: full-on truth, yes, but also a resounding respect for form. Say what you want about the guy, but I think he gets it. And he digs those kindred souls who also get it, even though their own truths may manifest themselves in vastly different ways.

Before I heard the album, I'd have been hard-pressed to come up with William Shatner and Ben Folds as the perfect people to make beautiful music together. Now that I have, I just can't wait to see what they come up with next.

xxx c

Book review: cheat

If the title wasn't tipoff enough, the flirty glances between (married) Janey and (also married, but not to Janey) Davis on page four of Christine Norrie's graphic novel pretty much give it away.

As the story opens, Janey and her workaholic husband, Marc, are moving into a new apartment secured for them by their attractive friends, Anna and Davis, who live in the building. It's clear that the True Romance has gone out of Marc & Janey's marriage; five years of living and working together (Marc writes travel books which Janey coordinates marketing and publicity for) have taken their toll.

Having sexy Davis within easy reach (heh heh) is too much temptation for the attention-starved Janey. She pushes Marc the rest of the way out the door, metaphorically speaking, encouraging him to take the solo research trips she used to resent him for taking...and then, in a moment of drunken weakness, finally and fatally (for her marriage, anyway) gives in to the crush she's been nurturing.

Drawn and written in the over-the-top, sex-as-cautionary-tale style of the old romance comics, cheat feels breezy and disposable, the graphic novel equivalent of potato chips, but the glossy surface belies the gut-punch of the story's close. Perhaps it's because, dramatic design and impossibly pretty character drawings aside, the story behind cheat is small, sordid and true. Have I used the descriptor "Chekhovian" around here lately? I'll do so again. That krazy, konsumptive kossack knew that the mundane often makes for the most poignant and true storytelling.

cheat is a strange, sad little tale that uses an odd medium to sneak up on your emotions from behind. And damned successfully, I'd say.

Old Anton would be proud...

xxx
c

UPDATE (12/3/08): In a shameless and transparent act of caving, I've been replacing book and DVD links with Amazon affiliate links throughout the site. I MAKE MONEY WHEN YOU CLICK ON THESE. Like, a full 1/4 cent or something. Whatever. I'm happy if you borrow it from a friend or the library, or buy it used (I like half.com and alibris online) or, praise Jeebus!, from your local independent dead tree retailer. Seriously. The main thing is, read. Absorb. Enjoy. Pass it on.

Book review: The Lovely Bones

I'm suspicious of runaway-best-seller fiction. The few times I've broken down and grudgingly read it second-hand or leaning against the bookcase at Borders, I've invariably been proven right. Oprah's outreach program notwithstanding, it's so rare that a truly well-written book appeals to anything but a slim section of the book-buying public that really, it's safer just to stay home and ride these things out. Besides, I'm cheap.So I gave The Lovely Bones a wide berth when it first came out. On top of its status as freak super-seller, the violent murder that drives the story just wasn't a big draw for me. (Never made it through Dave Eggers's cancer book, either.) My outlook was black enough in my 20's and 30's to tint the rest of my days without ever having to dip into the existentialists again, and this is assuming the good, long life genetics would appear to have in store for me.

At the same time, that violent act was a draw, in its way. Given what I'm going through with my own work, finding the universal (and the funny) in the very specific (and oft-grim) reality of me and chronic illness, I was curious to see what she'd done with this dark little story to touch such a nerve.

What's clear from the beginning is that the violent act itself, while not gratuitous, is really a device, a jumping-off place, to explore the wherefore of connection. When I started the book, I was deeply afraid that the title referred to the sad leavings of the narrator's mortal self. (SPOILER FOR THOSE ON NEWS BLACKOUT THE PAST THREE YEARS: the story in The Lovely Bones is told by a murdered girl from her new residence in heaven.) But as The Lovely Bones wears on, the story slowly morphs from one of shock and bereavement and the desire to bring a killer to justice into the real story: how people come together and fall apart; how areas of overlap shift and change with events and need; how we find our way through change, even impossibly horrible, violent change that is thrust upon us, to the other side and our new selves.

These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections, sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent, that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredicatable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life.

Alice Sebold writes beautifully and clearly, which is a good thing. The story is fanciful enough; fancy writing would likely kill it. Still, I felt a little lost in the heaven sequences. I'm curious to see Peter Jackson's take on The Lovely Bones. While on the surface, it would seem to be wildly different subject matter for the Ring-master, I think Jackson's unparallelled ability to fabricate a world that feels whole and complete will serve this material well.

But do read the book first. Best-seller or no, it's a ripping good yarn.

xxx
c

UPDATE (12/3/08): In a shameless and transparent act of caving, I've been replacing book and DVD links with Amazon affiliate links throughout the site. I MAKE MONEY WHEN YOU CLICK ON THESE. Like, a full 1/4 cent or something. Whatever. I'm happy if you borrow it from a friend or the library, or buy it used (I like half.com and alibris online) or, praise Jeebus!, from your local independent dead tree retailer. Seriously. The main thing is, read. Absorb. Enjoy. Pass it on.

"Medium"

Coming off of a self-imposed, five-year cable hiatus, it figures that my first real Destination TV airs on network. "Medium" (NBC, Mondays 10/9pm) stars Patricia Arquette as Arizona psychic Allison Dubois. Nominally a show about the super-dooper mental powers she employs in the service of various tricky cases for the D.A.'s office (she sees dead people), the real draw here is the juicy-real relationship Allison shares with her husband, Joe (Jake Weber). Yeah, they're both hot (they're TV stars!) and yeah, their exchanges are way better written than the usual i-dotting, t-crossing pap you see on TV (Glenn Gordon Caron of "Moonlighting" fame is at the helm, and his deft ear for dialogue is evident), but oh, oh, the restraint!

Example: upon returning home to find his lovely wife pouring herself yet another fatty vodka or family-sized glass of red (it quiets the voices), instead of a comment, cutting or no, or even a small-but-meaningful glance, we're treated to...nothing. Just the enormity of his pain as he takes in the whole picture and steamrolls over his own impulse to scream or smack her or take her in his arms and shake her before he collapses against her, weeping. Just that, with no fanfare.

Talk about an impulse to weep. I wasn't sure whether to sob with joy or leap to my feet with a "Hallelujah/A-men!" to the heavens and the network heads.

There's also a bunch of stuff in "Medium" about dreams and visions and all the other woo-woo stuff that generally fascinates me in real life, along with some flashy visual F/X-y stuff. But frankly, up against the anomaly of a real, live, everyday relationship on primetime TV, all that sparkly stuff feels...

Well, kinda ordinary.

xxx c

Book review: David Chelsea In Love

Several months ago, the Beverly Hills Public Library, a.k.a. the BHPL, a.k.a. The Greatest Library In All The Land, added a graphic novel section. This is perfect for people like me who are geeky enough to appreciate graphic novels but not geeky enough to frequent comix stores (and too cheap to buy any book over five bucks sight unseen via the internet).

The collection is pretty boy-heavy (as opposed to "pretty-boy heavy", next up: Eats, Shoots & Leaves) but there are a few items on the girlier end of the spectrum: Julie Doucet's My New York Diary, Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner's Our Cancer Year, Ghost World and suchlike. And that's what I like: story, story, story, the blacker, the better, but without all those silly superpowers and man-tights cluttering up the thing. To me, girly (read: auto/biographical) graphic novels combine the best of both childhood comix worlds, the human interaction of the Archie crowd in all its fascinating, Chekovian mundanity plus the firece filmic drawing of the Marvel house, minus the restraints of cartooning for kids.

David Chelsea gives gooooood autobiography; he's as dark and brooding and crazy as they come. He's also in possession of mad Rapidograph skills, which are rivalled only by his ability to employ them in pouring his messed-up life onto the page.

The story takes place mainly on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where Chelsea is (barely) eking out a living as an illustrator, and in his hometown of Portland, Oregon, where he travels (by bus!) in never-ending pursuit of the Girlfriend Action that eludes him in New York. Minnie, the central object of his affection, is a gawky philandering Portland actress; from the moment they meet cute at a party given by friends of Chelsea's sister, he's fairly obsessed by her. Of course, as one gigantic (literally) bundle of neuroses and bad judgment, she's the worst kind of person to get involved with. Narcissistic, solipsistic and completely unable to commit herself to one man or one city, Minnie keeps Chelsea teetering between the maddest kind of love and the worst kind of despair, much like Chelsea himself does with the women he treats as rest stops between bouts of Minnie.

Of course, the real love story in the book is the one between Chelsea and cartooning. At the end, in a sort of "where are they now" kind of summary, the now married-with-kids cartoonists admits to having given up la vida loca for the pleasures of true coupledom, which, as he says, he likes even better "even if it lacks the drama of a good graphic novel."

But the accompanying "photos" at the back of the book, really a series of photorealistic illustrations likely copied from real snaps, are as lovingly detailed as any manic sequence in David Chelsea in Love. He may not be the angst-ridden youth prowling the early-80s wilds of the East Village, but he's just as jiggy with the pen and ink as he ever was.

Let's hope he stays crazy-in-the-good-way for many, many years to come.

xxx
c

UPDATE (12/3/08): In a shameless and transparent act of caving, I've been replacing book and DVD links with Amazon affiliate links throughout the site. I MAKE MONEY WHEN YOU CLICK ON THESE. Like, a full 1/4 cent or something. Whatever. I'm happy if you borrow it from a friend or the library, or buy it used (I like half.com and alibris online) or, praise Jeebus!, from your local independent dead tree retailer. Seriously. The main thing is, read. Absorb. Enjoy. Pass it on.

Fat City

I bought an Oprah magazine on my evening walk to read in the tub tonight (gotta do something to make this semi-invalid lifestyle palatable) but when I got home and checked my email, I saw (cursed Yahoo!) that Fat City was on at 7. So much for that hot bath.

Have you seen Fat City? It's one of the great American 1970s movies and, after Sierra Madre and The Misfits, my favorite Huston flick. Not only does it have the strong sense of place that more and more I think is the main common denominator of the movies I love, it's set in L.A., it's got a killer soundtrack and it sports one of the greatest performances by an actress (Susan Tyrell) ever caught on film.

Fat City is nominally the story of two boxers, one, played by a peachy-faced Jeff Bridges, on the way up and the other, played by a not-too-craggy Stacy Keach, on the way out. But it's really a story about dreams and choices and what happens to the former when you don't keep a firm hand on the latter. There's a real spirit of my boy, Bukowski, about the thing, probably the wine-soaked Oma (Tyrell), the dingy residence hotels, the fringe dwellers pulling shifts at hopelessly dead-end jobs in a vain attempt to get a hair's breadth ahead of the eight ball.

Oh, hell. Just watch it. If you've got the Sundance Channel, it'll be on again Wednesday, February 9th at 3:35p and again on Sunday, the 13th at 12:20am.

And really, if one of you rich folk would TiVo it for me, I'd love that. Mostly because I'm dying to see what other gems the magical electronic box might unearth...

xxx c