In Which Thoroughly Obsessed Thursday Learns to Hepburn

My all-time favorite movie is The Philadelphia Story.  

Katharine Hepburn's Tracy Lord and Cary Grant's CK Dexter Haven have a romance that's about fifty years ahead of its time, made for the era of Aaron Sorkin, but lived out in the era of George Cukor, which is really just as good.  There's something in the word play, the intelligence of the characters, the quickness of the wit ("No mean Machiavelli is smiling, cynical Sidney Kidd") that speaks to me on a deeper level.  They are imperfect people living imperfect lives, but they're doing the best they can, and in the end they get something akin to happiness.

And then there's Bringing Up Baby.

I had the pleasure of watching it on screen at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center this evening, a feat that might be considered redundant, since I totally own the DVD.

But man oh man, was it well worth the effort.

While The Philadelphia Story is the polished, civilized, urbane, adult romance, Bringing Up Baby is nothing less than a roiling madcap frenzy of ridiculousness.  In the absolute best way possible.

Poor Cary Grant's David Huxley is a zoologist looking for funding for his museum.  Nutty Kate's Susan Vance is an eccentric heiress looking for... well, somewhere to keep the pet leopard her brother sent up from Brazil.  She may or may not also be looking for love.

Let's just say this:  There's a zoologist in possession of a very important bone for his collection.  There's a dog named George who steals and buries bones.  There's a "good" leopard on the loose.  There's also a "bad" leopard on the loose.  There's an alcoholic gardener who's seen everything, a big-game hunter who can't recognize the leopard mating call ("it's a loon," indeed), a psychiatrist who continually falls victim to theft, and a sheriff so desperate to be re-elected that he locks up exactly the wrong people.

In the middle of it all are David and Susan, running around like lunatics (no wonder she's so skinny!) trying to find the bone, trying to capture the leopard, and trying to keep everyone else at bay.  And also trying (well, at least she is) to fall in love.  Is it realistic?  Absolutely not.  In fact, in the end, I'm not even sure why they like each other.

Kate is phenomenal.  She bounces from scene to scene, lit with an energy that cannot be tamed.  And that insane giggle, that perfectly screeched "Oh, David," gives Cary Grant the exact right balance for his deadpan slide into the gaslight.  

It's funny, it's sweet, and it's the original screwball comedy.  What more do you need than that?

In Which I Review Rebel by Zoe Archer

I write this in the final throes of my Buffy marathon.  Hear that?  That's Boy Scout throwing a parade because he won't have to deal with Sarah Michelle Gellar for at least another year... Little does he know that the college angst will go up to 11 when I start my Felicity marathon next week.  HA!

But in the meantime, I did finally manage to finish the book that I tragically left at Scout Camp last week.  Nothing like a little Kindle for iPhone and a long weekend to ensure that the job gets done one way or another.

Rebel (while most excellently awesome) was not my favorite of the Blades books so far.  I got to this book around the same time Wendy Pan was getting to it in her marathon, and in retrospect I'm glad she read it before I did; if I had read it first, I would have spent a lot of time worrying about whether or not she would like it.  See Wendy Pan really doesn't go in for "traditional" paranormals, up to and including vamps and werewolves.

Nathan Lesperance, it turns out, is not just one of the first (and only, I assume) Native attorneys in Victoria.  When he comes out to the Northwest Territory to collect the belongings of a deceased client, he meets the former Blade Astrid Bramfield and very shortly thereafter determines that he's shapeshifter who can turn into a wolf.   Long story short, his transformation is enough to get the attention of some Heirs, and Astrid isn't enough of a "former" to be able to turn down a magical being in need of assistance.

Astrid has been living in self-imposed isolation since the murder of her husband, Michael, on a Blades mission several years ago.  She's icy cold, and knows the minute she meets Lesperance that he's trouble with a capital T.  Of course sparks fly, and Archer does a most excellent job of thawing Astrid gradually and realistically.  There isn't a whole lot of time for Astrid and Nathan to get to know each other and to discover their hot and sweaty feelings, but the intensity of the attraction is so immediate and so well paced that it is in no way unrealistic.

As with the other Blades novels, it's fun to read about a new culture, and to see the icons of that culture woven into the mythology of the book itself.  To give more details is to give away major spoilers, so I will not say anything further about the plot.

Except for this.

Nathan and Astrid piss me off just a bit.  They're really gross together.  Like, they're that couple you're friends with who you're embarrassed to go out in public with because all they do is make out and grope each other under the table.  They make out in front of tribesmen.  A poor Blade (who shall *spoiler alert* remain nameless) has to sit alone by the campfire and listen to them have sex.  And now I'm about a third of the way through Stranger (Catallus Graves... how do I love thee?  Let me count the ways...) and they are still annoying, all having-of-a-connection, having-loud-sex-across-the-hall, can't-even-spend-one-night-apart (and not in an "awwww, cute" way).

I can't fault the writing.  It's vivid and matches the characters, even.  But I don't like it, and I'm not sure I like them as a result.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem is Late. And Other Kinds of Fail.

Well.  It was one of those weekends.  You know, the kind where you wake up Tuesday (!) morning and don't even feel like you had a weekend.  Despite the extra day (thank you, Mr. Presidents), I have no idea what happened to my time off, except that Boy Scout has new suits (!), I have a new knitting project (!!), and we did an awful lot of Nigella redux cooking.

There was firstly the epic fail version of Grasshopper Pie, which failed probably because I substituted (by necessity, not choice) one cup of marshmallows with one cup of Fluff.  We think (because we don't actually know) that this caused a distinct lack of setting.  In other words, we ate Grasshopper Soup for dessert on Sunday night, and I continue to weep at odd moments throughout the day.

Last night was much more successful, when the Scout and I re-made the Carbonnade a la Flammande (Beer Braised Beef Deliciousness) for my grandparents.  This time we did away with the initial oil and let the bacon (yummy, healthy/happy pig bacon from Vermont) provide all of the grease we needed... The result was much lighter, and much less rich.  This might also be due to the fact that we actually used a dark ale this time (hello, Newcastle) instead of Guinness.  Also making a HUGE difference: The from-scratch allspice made by Granny Jones (Did you know it's just equal parts cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves?  Us neither!), which was far more fragrant and flavorful than its jarred counterpart.  Don't buy allspice, kids.  Make it.

Let the magic begin!

So, one day, Kate Jones gives me this Zoe Archer book and says, "Momma, you HAVE to read this!" I put the book on my bedside table and promised to get to it as soon as I finished whatever I happened to be reading at that moment. The problem was that I was reading something on my beloved Kindle. When you read from a Kindle, you are never really ever finished! It's the book that just keeps on writing! Then Lady Liberty comes to visit. She sees the book on my bedside table and asks me how far I have gotten because she's slated to read it next. Um, I am on page 14! I distract with a discussion on the awesomeness of the Kindle and I whet Lady Liberty's suppressed appetite for e-books! Within hours - I am the grateful recipient of the whole Zoe Archer Blades of the Roses bundle... on Kindle! My 50th birthday gift from Lady Liberty.(She really wants to read the books and is tired of waiting for me to put the Kindle down.)So now I have been asked to write a skeptic's review of the Blade of the Roses series. Kate wanted me to review the first book - but Kate knows I am hopeless at remembering one book once I have started another - so I offer a compendium of the four.

I have to say, if the books were not on my Kindle, I would still be on page 14 and still putting off the reading of them. Kate warned me (and she knew I needed warning) that the books were historical romances - I'm in so far - and involved some, "magic." This is me back-peddling. Um - yeah, NO! "Just read the first one, Momma, I promise you will love it." SIGH (of major magnitude!)Okay, and now they are on the Kindle - so no more excuses!

The characters in these books are fantastic. I cannot emphasize, enough, how much I enjoyed meeting them, getting to know them and caring about them. Their relationships with their romantic partners are so well developed and their relationships with each other are strong and believable. The historical aspects are well plotted and fascinating. I was in Mongolia, Greece, Canada, and England, learning things I didn't know and remembering things I did. I cheered the heroes, cursed the villains, and held my breath as battles of enormous magnitude threatened my main characters!

So, you ask, what's with the skepticism? It was the whole "magic" thing. I am not a fantasy reader and I am not in the least bit interested in Vampire stories. My reluctance in getting past page 14 was the magical appearance of some metal beetles attacking someone and drilling holes in a concrete wall. In the end, Zoe Archer had me completely committing myself to faeries, pixies, the Colossus of Rhodes, people who can change into wolves, bears and hawks, transporting ones self through fire, King Arthur (and Merlin.) There were the magic fish which enabled some of our heroes to breath under water, there were ancient compasses with the technology of modern day GPS systems, and there were spells and potions. The author had so perfectly developed the characters and the conflicts that the hows and the whos didn't matter to me at all. The only thing I cared about was how it was all going to resolve itself. The magical individuals who came out of the woods (and there were a lot of woods) became as believable and important as the "real people." Nothing was off the table. Inventions and science played their parts, but it was the magic that saved the day. And love. Let's not forget that! Because everyone gets a happy ever after to make the deepest cynic sigh. And you believe!

So, thanks Kate - for helping me to expand my horizons into a comfortable realm of fantasy. Thank you Lady Liberty - for feeding my Kindle hunger and for taking away the last hurdle of my excuses. Go out and buy, beg for or borrow Zoe Archer's Blades of the Roses quartet and prepare to sit back, be mystified, horrified, mesmerized and taken up in the magic that she has created for you! I know I was!

In Which Thoroughly Obsessed Thursday Loves to Travel.

Hi Friends!

It's been a busy week.  I detoured to Orlando for Tuesday/Wednesday (Yes, it was warm, but the sun wasn't really out, and before you get jealous, I was there for about twenty-four hours, going to a convention that took place in my hotel.  Visiting Mickey we were not).

One of the strangest parts of my life (now) is that I do relatively little travelling.  Which is ironic, given the pace of my autumn, but it's true-- in previous lives there was a time I got on a plane for a round-trip about once a month.  Yikes.

So travelling for business now feels natural, like returning to an old friend.  One of the best parts of travelling for me is the opportunity to read my Vanity Fair, cover-to-cover, without feeling like I have something else I should be doing.  I often have this problem (the "shouldn't I be doing something else?" problem) because for the most part I should be reading something to review for this blog (...) or marathoning something (...) or catching up on all of the back eps of Supernatural I have hiding on my hard drive.

Not so, this week.  No book (*sob*), no laptop (*whimper*)... no problem?!  Vanity Fair (or any magazine, I'm sure) is key for plane travel, because no matter what happens they can't take it away from you.  It doesn't have to come out of your bag to go through the x-ray machine, it doesn't have to be turned off and stowed for takeoff/landing, and it will not run out of battery.

What I like about Vanity Fair specifically is that the articles are long, but not too long, and can be parceled out at any stage of the journey; standing in the security line, waiting at the gate, and indeed, after the captain tells the flight attendants to prepare the cabin for landing.

This month, I am particularly enchanted by this article by Michael Lewis, entitled When Irish Eyes Are Crying.  It's not a nice article, it's about the economic fall of Ireland and the idiocy (yes, I am perfectly comfortable with the judgy-mcjudgyness in that statement) of the Irish government following the collapse.  Let's just say to those who are upset by the bailouts: at least our government didn't guarantee every penny lost.  What I really like about this piece is that it is totally comprehensible; for the same reasons I had slight issues with the Vanderbilt biography, I often can't read articles about the economy because I simply cannot follow what-in-the-holy-hell is going on.  The Vanity Fair piece is uncompromising in its analysis, and extremely clear on all points.

It also set me on a warpath to buy property in Dublin.  You know, like a vacation home.  Who's with me?

There's also this most badass piece on Lauren Bacall, a most badass chick.  Perhaps my next in-car book needs to be a Bogie bio.  Hmmm...

Happy Thursday, all.  Be sure and come back soon (Maybe tomorrow, Wendy Pan?  Maybe?) for A Skeptic's Review of The Blades of the Rose.  It's gonna be a good one.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem Enjoys Cooking with Beer.

Unspeakable tragedy this week: Both the laptop and the book (THE BOOK. THE ZOE ARCHER BOOK I JUST STARTED READING) have been left at Scout Camp.  While I try to wrap my mind around that (I have to travel to Florida tomorrow. Without a book.  WTF, and also FML) and resign myself to the fact that I will have to try the new Kindle borrowing system (Yes, kids.  Wendy Pan is reading paranormal romance novels.  Sign of impending doom?  Perhaps...) to finish the book on my iPhone (sigh), I can at least reflect on a weekend of successful cooking.

Like that's really going to help.

Have you ever heard of golden syrup before?  No?  Neither had I, until I saw it listed in several Nigella recipes.  And if you're like me, you go to the store and buy what you buy without exploring further, and when things like golden syrup are listed in recipes, you think "Pshaw.  I shall never be able to make this recipe because that ingredient is clearly only available in one specialty food shop in San Francisco, and clearly costs $22 per half-ounce."

When Boy Scout and I were in Stop and Shop a couple of weeks ago, I saw golden syrup.  Like, for reals.  And then I got really excited and bought some and hid it in the cupboard for a rainy day.  Or a sunny one, like this past Saturday, when I used it to make Guinness Gingerbread.

The thing that really excites me about golden syrup is that it pretty much is corn syrup, only it tastes like liquid toffee.  Because that's essentially what it is: cane sugar syrup.

And with it, I produced some of the best gingerbread I have ever tasted.  I mean, seriously.  I like gingerbread, but usually find it fairly bland.  It's one of those things that has a time and a place, but promotes nothing by way of craving or necessity.  This stuff is dynamite.  The Guinness and the syrup add a depth of flavor that is pretty rockin', and over all the recipe is low-maintenance and easy to make.

I also made (confession: for the second time) Irish Oaten Rolls, which contain Guinness as well.  They're pretty bland, but in a roll-like, comforting way.  You know when you're eating it that if it's going to hold you over pretty well if need be, and you can take comfort from it's relative healthiness- whole wheat flour, oats, and honey.

And with that, I leave you to enjoy your Valentine's Day.  In honor of the holiday, I give you some horrifying 80's dating videos.  Ohmyholyhell.




Side note: Is it bad that I'm seriously considering that Amazon six-pack? Hmm...

In Which Thoroughly Obsessed Thursday Plugs Along on the Non-Fiction Front.

Quick recap for those who don't know: I get all of my non-fiction reading-by-listening done during the four hour round-trip I make about once a week to Scout Camp.  It's served me well; I've gotten a considerable chunk of non-fiction reading done since this whole crazy idea took shape, far more than if I had tried to find the time to actually... well, read.

My focus for the past few weeks (because that's how long these things take) has been The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles.  I first saw the book in San Francisco (I think), and was extremely excited to give it a try as soon as I finished A. Lincoln.

And when I finally finished it today, I felt... underwhelmed.

This was upsetting, because I had super high hopes.  This book won the National Book Award, after all, and I really wanted something epic (as the title suggests), along the John Adams lines.  In the end, I don't feel like I know Cornelius Vanderbilt any better; I know he was an obscenely wealthy man (adjusted to today's dollars, he's worth over $100 billion), and I know that he made his money in shipping and railroads.

I suppose, ultimately, that I also know that he helped to pave the way west, and that he had an incredibly fractured (yet interesting!) family life.

But I really don't know that much about him.  The book is filled with interesting historical economic facts (perhaps too many, it can be difficult to follow) and cannot emphasize enough the role Vanderbilt had in shaping our modern economy (and it really cannot be overstated... the country would not be the same without him), but the man himself remains elusive.

We know what he did, but not much of why he did it.  And call me a lame-o, but my favorite parts of biographies tend to be the nitty-gritty relationship details, the interpersonal relationships between the subject of the book and the people surrounding him/her.  In this book, I really wish there had been as much about the difficulties Vanderbilt had with his various sons and sons-in-law (and his daughters!), and the intriguing relationship he had with his first wife, Sophia as there was about dividends and railroad monopolies.  Cornelius and Sophia Vanderbilt were married for over fifty years, and yet Sophia only shows up in the text sporadically, mostly as a set-piece in the difficult relationship Vanderbilt had with his son, another Cornelius.

The First Tycoon reads almost like a laundry list of stock shortages, railroad routes, and how to corner the stock market, nineteenth century-style, and I'm way too far removed from an economics classroom to follow the finer points.

I certainly admire the work put in to the book; Stiles did his research and gives plenty of details about the financial and political goings-on at the time.  I only wish he had been able to tell me more about the man he's supposedly writing about.