The Conical Glass

Joanna

2009-11-18T06:30:00.000-08:00

My friend Janet is outraged over Joanna Krupa's elimination from "Dancing with the Stars." Yes, Joe and I are still watching "DwtS," and we were both surprised by her ouster.

Unlike last season, when I gave my dialing finger a workout voting for ooh-la-la Frenchman Gilles Marini, I don't have a horse in this race. The only time I've voted this season is two weeks ago, when I felt either reality TV princess Kelly Osbourne or weepy tax dodger Aaron Carter was going to get the boot, and I felt compelled to phone in for Kelly because I so desperately wanted Carter off my screen, pronto.

Krupa, a pouty Polish bikini model, was quite obviously a better dancer than Osbourne or Donny Osmond; I don't think she was as good as the season's frontrunner, pop star Mya. Of course, Mya is something of a ringer, having studied dance for years (just not ballroom dance, which I guess makes her eligible for the competition). She even appeared as one of the "Cell Block Tango" dancers in the 2002 film "Chicago."

So why were the lesser lights, Osbourne and Osmond, spared over the graceful, elegant Krupa? Well, I think part of it is their relatability. Both of them show their emotions openly, making it hard not to root for them. If Osbourne trips up during a dance, the smile instantly disappears from her face; when a judge praises her, she lights up like a 150-watt bulb. Osmond joyfully punches the air when he's nailed a dance, and if he makes a misstep, he is his own harshest critic, encouraging the judges to be tougher on him. (One week, Carrie Ann Inaba mentioned that he had made about four mistakes during a dance, and he immediately piped up that he'd actually made five.)

Also, the two Os have built-in fan bases. I had never heard of Krupa before "DwtS," whereas I practically grew up on the Osmonds (I was a devoted watcher of the Donny & Marie variety show back in the 70s), and Kelly appeared on one of the most popular reality TV series of all time, "The Osbournes." Plus, she has that redemptive arc -- she battled drug addiction and seems to have learned from her youthful mistakes.

I don't think there's ever been a contestant on "DwtS" who has wanted to win more than Kelly -- the woman has obviously worked her butt off, listened to her partner (Dutch-born ballroom champ Louis van Amstel), and she's improved tremendously over the course of the competition. By contrast, there was always something ice-princessy about Krupa. Remember those old TV commercials with the model saying, "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful"? Joanna is the woman we hate because she's beautiful. (Of course, being a bikini model isn't necessarily a ticket to oblivion in this competition, since Brooke Burke won a couple seasons ago. But she was a little older, and a mom, which I suspect helps with a certain segment of the voters.) Krupa's best, most memorable dance was her "Futuristic Paso Doble," which required her to act like a robot.

"DwtS" is not a pure meritocracy -- if it were, there's no way soulful sensation Lil' Kim would have been booted before wooden rodeo champ Ty Murray last season. I think Mya will win next week, but on a show where personality frequently trumps physical ability, I wouldn't count out either of her challengers yet.

Nostalgiarama

2009-11-09T18:35:00.001-08:00

This past weekend, I had a choice of two concerts that would bring back the 1980s in all their glory: the Pixies performing Doolittle in its entirety at the Fox Theater in Oakland, or Devo's two-night stand in San Francisco (Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! on Friday, Freedom of Choice on Saturday). I opted for Devo, mainly because I saw the Pixies live about a zillion times during their wonder years, in venues large (opening for U2 at the Spectrum in Philly) and small (opening for Throwing Muses at the old 9:30 Club in D.C.). But I was too young to witness the spuds on their seminal tours, though I did finally manage to see them twice. My dad drove me and my brother to see them in East Lansing in late 1982, and I also caught their 2005 reunion gig at the Paramount in Oakland. That was a kick-ass show, so I knew they still had the chops.

Q: Are We Not Men? is one of my favorite albums -- I think it still holds up brilliantly today, and there's really only one song on it that I don't care for ("Too Much Paranoia," mercifully short). Hearing it live was a dream come true, and the band put on an incredibly high-energy performance from start to finish. Here's a surprisingly decent YouTube video of Devo's Friday performance of "Gut Feeling," which is probably one of my top 10 favorite songs of all time. The guys perform with such intensity that it's hard to believe they're all in their late 50s and early 60s (with the exception of drummer Josh Freese, the only non-original member). It's kind of like watching a bunch of suburban dads rock out. Here's another video worth watching: opening track "Uncontrollable Urge," featuring four of the members jumping in unison. I can't imagine that they had any more energy back in 1978.

There were only two encores, "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA" and "Gates of Steel," so the show was just about an hour long. I kind of wish they'd played some more songs from Duty Now For the Future, the bridge between Q: Are We Not Men? and Freedom of Choice, but it was a thoroughly satisfying experience nonetheless.

Despite the fact that the album contains the band's biggest hit, "Whip It," I got the feeling (a gut feeling?) that Devo wasn't quite as into playing Freedom of Choice. The disc is much more synth-based, and it's harder to get crazy when you're behind a keyboard. Plus, it's just not as strong an album as their debut; most of side two (yes, even though I now have it on CD, I will always think of it as a vinyl record) is inconsequential. I could have sworn I saw Mothersbaugh reading lyrics (taped to the stage, perhaps?) at one point.

For the Saturday night encore, "Beautiful World," Mothersbaugh broke out his Booji Boy garb as a treat for the fans (the plastic-masked Booji character was a fixture in the band's first few videos). Booji delivered a monologue about meeting Michael Jackson in L.A., and for a moment, you could almost feel the crowd holding its collective breath. Even among aging punk rockers, it seemed inappropriate to joke about Jackson. But the story turned out to be a little sweet, in its own weird way. Moments like that one ensure that I'll always be a proud member of the Devo faithful.

What's Wrong With America

2009-11-07T17:49:00.000-08:00

I have been watching this show on one of our smaller local PBS outlets, KCSM, called "MHz Worldview Presents." I found out about it from a couple people in my book group. Worldview shows international mystery programs on a rotating basis -- French, Italian, German and Scandinavian. They air at 10 PM on Monday nights and are repeated at 1 AM on Wednesdays.

I am primarily interested in the Norwegian "Varg Veum" series, and Sweden's "Wallander." I think the Swedish-made films based on Henning Mankell's "Wallander" books are far superior to the English ones featuring Kenneth Branagh that air on "Masterpiece Mystery," and "Varg" is kind of goofy fun -- it's about a private eye based in Bergen who seems to get beat up about half a dozen times in every episode, but always lives to triumph over evil and charm the ladies with his rugged blond good looks. Since they are murder mysteries, not surprisingly, things can get pretty violent. There are dead bodies, dismembered corpses, children in peril, shoot-outs, blood, guts, and mayhem.

But hey, the show is on well past any child's bedtime, and anyway, what kid is going to want to watch a subtitled crime drama from Norway? However, whoever is packaging this show for American audiences obviously thinks they need to protect us from that racy European content. I'm not talking about the violence and death, mind you -- I'm talking about the sex.

I swear I'm not making this up: in one broadcast, "Worldview" blurred a statue every time it appeared onscreen, presumably because it depicted a bare-breasted woman. (The image looked something like this one which I whipped up myself, except I think it was even blurrier. Naturally, that particular statue is in Europe, out in public where children can see it.)

In another episode, a woman was briefly shown in her bra and panties as she was getting dressed. Even though she was wearing underwear, she was still blurred. I hope the people who would be horribly offended by the sight of a woman in lingerie never click over to the Jockey.com web site by mistake.

So, in short, the dead body of a young girl stuffed into a barrel = no problem; bare marble breasts = an affront to our morals. Of course, I guess I shouldn't expect anything different in the country where movies like "Saw" and "Hostel" are rated R, while "Henry & June" got a NC-17.

It's Too Early

2009-11-03T12:50:00.000-08:00

I was in a store yesterday and they were playing Christmas music -- something by John Legend, followed by that Josh Groban recording of "I'll Be Home For Christmas" featuring heart-tugging messages by U.S. troops stationed in Iraq. No retail establishment should be allowed to play carols at least until all the discounted bags of Halloween candy have been sold.

Believe it or not, I've got about a third of my Christmas shopping done already -- I've been picking up items here and there -- and am hoping to have it all done by Thanksgiving. I like to support my local merchants, but playing Xmas tunes in early November just makes me want to do everything online, where I can supply my own soundtrack.

Speaking of Halloween, this was the first time Joe and I stayed home that night since moving into our "new" house. We don't have all that many kids in our neighborhood, but I'd read that our town attracts carloads of children from other areas who come here because it's safe and presumably people here give really good candy. I was prepared with bags of Three Musketeers and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. We wound up with just under 50 trick-or-treaters, ranging from precious 4-year-olds dressed like princesses to slightly thuggish teenagers sans costumes who held out their backpacks.

However, some friends of ours who live in the ritzier part of town had 400 kids come to their door, and they told us about a family near the city limits who had -- this is not a typo -- 1,200. Assuming one piece of Halloween candy costs about 15 cents (though you can certainly get it cheaper if you buy off-brand stuff), that's $180 to satisfy kids from all over the East Bay. If I lived in that neighborhood, I think I'd buy four or five bags of candy, hand it out, and when it was gone, turn out the lights.

Anglophilia

2009-10-24T21:11:00.000-07:00

We went to see two movies today, both British imports. I picked the first one, "An Education," which I was desperate to see because it is that rare thing, a decently-reviewed Peter Sarsgaard movie. Lately, he's been in more than few stinkers, like "Orphan" and "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh." Joe picked the second one, "The Damned United," a film about an English football club manager, scripted by the always-reliable Peter Morgan ("The Queen," "Frost/Nixon"). After "An Education" ended, we had 45 minutes to drive to the other end of town to catch "United." Seeing them both back to back like that made me realize that the seemingly dissimilar films did have one common theme -- arrogance. (Warning: mild spoilers ahead...)

Jenny, the young heroine of "An Education," played by the dazzling newcomer Carey Mulligan, is a 16-year-old schoolgirl who has only one thing on her mind -- getting into Oxford -- until David (Sarsgaard) comes along. A sophisticated, wealthy, much-older man, he wines and dines her, showing her a glamorous life she never knew existed. It's certainly a far cry from anything she's ever experienced in her dull, early-60s suburban life. Why should she plod away at Latin and eventually wind up like her dowdy spinster schoolteacher (played by the usually-very-undowdy Olivia Williams) when she can run off with David and enjoy a whirlwind of travel, concerts and beautiful clothes? I don't think it's giving too much away to reveal that Jenny eventually learns that David doesn't quite offer the easy path to a perfect life.

Mulligan, like her American counterpart Ellen Page, can play much younger than her actual age (she was in her early 20s when the film was shot, but is completely convincing as a 16-year-old). It seemed unrealistic to me that Jenny's parents would be so supportive of her relationship with David, but thinking about it later, I realized that a middle-class couple with few means (in one scene, Jenny's father complains about how much he'll have to spend to send her to Oxford) probably would want their daughter to "marry up," as it were. And in that day & age, once you were a married woman, what would be the point of furthering your education?

If I had a daughter around Jenny's age, I'd want her to see this film -- as dated as some aspects are, the message that in the end, a woman must be able to depend on herself and not simply rely on a man is a timeless one.

Jenny thinks she's got life figured out at age 16. Brian Clough (Michael Sheen) didn't have the excuse of youth -- he was an adult man with a family when he became manager of the Leeds United football club in 1974, the most coveted job in U.K. sport. He promptly went in and told the team members that they were doing everything wrong, despite their long record of victories under previous manager Don Revie, and from now on, it would be his way or the highway. In fact, Clough is practically a textbook example of how not to succeed in a new job. He's such a jerk that it's hard not to want him to fail, and fail he does. Most of "The Damned United" takes place in flashback, as we learn how Clough was able to attain the lofty position of Leeds manager in the first place. A big part of his prior success at Derby County was due to his assistant manager, Pete Taylor (Timothy Spall), who had an uncanny knack for being able to pick players who would help lead the team to victory. But when he gets the Leeds job, Clough is convinced he can go it alone -- that he's the genius. He is very wrong.

In the film, the Brian-Pete relationship is -- well, I don't want to use the hated word bromance, but "United" is practically a love story in which the two men are together and then split up and everything goes haywire because they are so obviously meant to be a pair. It's sad to note that while the film shows them reconciling, in real life, they were torn apart a decade later by a disagreement over a player's transfer to a different team. The men remained estranged until Taylor's death in 1990. Clough died five years ago, and his family is reportedly angry at inaccuracies in the film. (It's based on a novel, The Damned Utd. by David Peace, which is a fictionalized account of Clough's tenure at Leeds.) The "goofs" page of the movie's IMDB profile shows that the writers took plenty of liberties, and shows that a lot of football fans want to set the record straight. For instance, "the 3rd round F.A. Cup tie between Leeds and Derby on the 27th of January 1968 depicted in the movie was played in Leeds, not in Derby." Good to know!

Bottom line: if you're a Sarsgaard fan like me, run, don't walk, to see "An Education." It would also appeal to anyone in search of a coming-of-age saga or period piece -- it's certainly a nice alternative to all the horror fare currently clogging theaters. I was a little more lukewarm on "The Damned United," mostly because Clough was such an unlikable and deluded character. On the up side, it's easy to follow even if you know nothing about football, and Sheen gives yet another excellent performance.

One slightly odd note: the dialogue of both films include reference to the "wandering Jew." I had always thought that was the name of a plant, but I now know that it is also a figure from folklore who was cursed to walk the Earth until Jesus' second coming. We live and learn.

Coincidences at the book sale

2009-10-17T12:15:00.001-07:00

Yesterday afternoon I was emailing with my friend Neal about author Sherman Alexie, who had just done a reading in Albuquerque. I mentioned that I had been wanting to read his acclaimed novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

A couple hours later, I went to my local Friends of the Library book sale, which is one of the largest in the Bay Area. I happened to be walking past a table when someone picked up a book and showed it to her friend. "Oh, this is a wonderful book," she said. I glanced over, and noticed that the book she was holding was none other than The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. The friend took it, glanced at it, and put it down. I reached over and snapped it up.

I walked over to a table filled with hundreds of romance novels displayed spine-up -- I don't read that genre, but the sheer volume was kind of impressive. A fellow browser mentioned that she had just donated 500 historical romances -- "those were my duplicates!" -- and said she was looking for novels by Liz Carlyle. I had never heard of that particular author, but at that very moment, my eye happened to fall on a particular book and I read the name Liz Carlyle. I handed it to her, and sure enough, it was one of the titles she was searching for. (A further perusal of the romance table shows that a good third of the books there seem to be written by Nora Roberts.)

One of the things I like to do at the sale is try to find the book that seems least likely to sell. At this sale, I think I have to declare a tie between The Complete Y2K Home Preparation Guide and 5/5/2000: Ice: The Ultimate Disaster. From a description of the latter book: "The Antarctic ice mass should be three miles thick by May 5, 2000 -- the date when all the planets will be arrayed in a straight line and some kind of cataclysmic shift of ice to the equator is possible..." Perhaps the 2012 Survival Guide will be turning up at the 2017 Friends of the Library sale.

Secrets and lies

2009-10-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

Are you keeping a family secret? I learned a really good one a couple of years ago, which has the added advantage of being about relatives who are all dead, so I can pass it along without having to worry about invading anyone's privacy. My great-grandmother -- my father's maternal grandmother -- had a "hidden" sister named Emma. Emma gave birth to an illegitimate son in 1916, and both mother and child were considered mentally ill. The son, Birger, spent his life in and out of an asylum before dying in the mid-1970s; Emma was a social outcast who never left her small town, even as most of her siblings emigrated to the U.S. She died a couple of years before her son passed away.

This is how far my great-grandmother went to keep the secret: she always claimed that the church where the genealogical records were kept in her hometown of Stockaryd, Sweden, had burned to the ground, just so no one would ever go searching there for the family history. I assume she never even told my grandmother, her daughter, about Emma. My parents learned about it during an e-mail exchange with some distant relatives after my grandmother's death. Sometimes I think about her and how dreadful it must have been to be shunned by your family, your very existence erased by your own siblings.

When I heard an interview on NPR with Steve Luxenberg about his book Annie's Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret, I knew I had to read the book. Luxenberg, a Washington Post editor, learned after his mother's death that the oft-recited narrative of her childhood was a complete fiction. Only child Beth had actually been Bertha, who grew up with her younger sister Annie, a mentally retarded, disabled girl who had been institutionalized at the age of 21. Annie Cohen died in the early 1970s after spending over 30 years in Eloise, a massive public hospital in Detroit. Luxenberg knew that he had to bring all of his reporter's skills to find the truth about Annie -- and why his mother had spent a lifetime keeping her a secret. One of his big questions: did his father, who died several years before his mother, ever find out that he had a sister-in-law?

The book is absolutely fascinating and I highly recommend it, so I don't want to give away too much of what Luxenberg's research reveals. He is fortunate in that some of the people who knew his mother and Annie as children were still alive, so he could track them down and interview them. But the book is about much more than one family's secret -- it's a fascinating portrait of how society's views of mental illness and physical limitations have changed over the decades. Eloise itself, once home to over 10,000 residents and 75 buildings, is now a virtual ghost town with just a handful of dilapidated buildings. Had Annie been born in the early 1970s, instead of dying then, her life would have taken a very different course.

For some reason, the saddest thing to me was that Luxenberg never found a photograph of Annie, despite combing through hundreds of albums belonging to family members, friends and former neighbors. (His mother, not surprisingly, kept no pictures from her childhood; it was as though her life began when she got married in her mid-20s. Beth/Bertha did not even appear in her high school yearbook, perhaps due to the family's poverty.) The haunting cover image is an illustration made from a stock photo. At least Annie's memory is honored by this book.

Anatomy of an inbox

2009-10-07T14:57:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I came down with a cold -- despite my hypochondria, I'm fairly certain it wasn't the swine flu, just the kind of head cold that causes a perpetually runny nose, sore throat and mild aches & pains. Happily, unlike the previous time I had a cold (in Sweden last year), I had access to NyQuil. For those who haven't taken this miracle substance, it gets rid of all your symptoms, for a price: the fact that it completely knocks you out and makes your head feel like the contents have been scooped out with a melon baller. Now, I'd rather have my nose stop running and be able to sleep through the night, but the downside is pretty significant in that it renders me fairly non-functional and unable to do much more than look at the pictures on Go Fug Yourself, drink tea, and watch "Dancing with the Stars."

So my email has been piling up like crazy, and I'm starting to realize that I have a problem -- an email problem. My inbox, which I try to keep at a reasonably tidy 50-60 messages, currently has 229. This is the reason I can never go on vacation without bringing the laptop along; the stress of returning home to hundreds of unread messages negates whatever relaxation I might have enjoyed while on a break.

Is it even possible to tame the inbox monster? My email program displays 50 messages per screen, and here's what's up on the current one:

Seven of the emails are from clients, including a couple cc:s that don't require any immediate action on my part. Two are from my mom asking me to make updates to a web site I manage for her. I guess I could kind of count her as a client, in this specific instance.

Six more are related to the lineups page I maintain -- new listings from contacts at the shows, and, poignantly, an email from a guy in the Air Force (he has an af.mil address) asking why I haven't updated the page recently. I am letting down our men and women in uniform! Guilt!!

Five emails are news-related. I'm on various NPR, New York Times and SFGate mailing lists that send me email when news breaks. Turns out the Nobel Prize in Chemistry recognizes study of ribosomes! And Arnold Schwarzenegger is threatening to veto lots of stuff! I like to be the first to know things. I have fond memories of being online in Sweden at the exact moment the Times email landed in my inbox announcing that John McCain had chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate. Thousands of miles away, and still up on the politics at home.

There are a couple of emails where I just don't understand how they wound up in my inbox at all. "Help pick the official Gavin Newsom logo," for instance. I would never in a million years have signed up for a Newsom for Governor mailing list, and yet here he is, asking me to choose which graphic design I prefer. There's no way he's going to get the nomination unless Jerry Brown has a change of heart and drops out of the race, so why bother picking? I'm just surprised none of them are blatant rip-offs of that Obama "O" design.

Three emails come from MySpace -- I hate MySpace, but I maintain a seldom-updated page for the Loud Family, so the friend requests and comments land in my inbox.

One -- yes, just one out of 50 -- email is a personal note from a friend. Thanks, Rog.

Everything else, approximately half of the 50 emails, is from a mailing list. There's the comic of the day, puppy of the day, newsletters from CDBaby, PayPal, Amazon Associates and my web hosting provider, a couple of messages from ecto (a music-related mailing list I've been on for a good 15 years now). Chicago Public Radio wants to send me a tote bag, probably because of some "This American Life"-related donation I made long ago. Kashi wants to send me coupons. Tickets to "Finian's Rainbow" on Broadway are just $55, and "The Creature from the Black Lagoon" movie will be showing in San Francisco.

Ordinarily, I can keep up with it all since I'm online all day, every day, working efficiently, deleting and archiving. But confronting it in one big clump is daunting, and makes me want to crawl back in bed and pull the covers over my head. I may drift off into a Nyquil-dazed slumber, but the emails never stop coming.

The Girl with the AltiVec Velocity Engine

2009-09-22T15:05:00.001-07:00

Since I love mysteries, and I love Sweden, you would think I'd spend all my free time reading Swedish crime novels -- and you'd be wrong. I have read works by most of the popular Swedish writers, but they are often just too depressing. Henning Mankell in particular makes me feel like slitting my wrists (I do enjoy the Swedish "Wallander" movies they show on KCSM, though). The only Swedish mystery writers I truly love are Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, whose brilliant Martin Beck series (published between 1965-75) combines brutal crimes with just enough comic relief and black humor; the books are still in print from Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Books, and I recommend them without reservation.

I put off reading the late Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for an entire year (I got a copy last summer) because I'd heard it was supposed to be spectacularly violent. However, it's become such a massive international bestseller, along with its sequel The Girl Who Played with Fire, that eventually it could not be denied. So I finally finished it, and... frankly, I'm not quite sure why it has become such a massive international bestseller.

The best part of the hefty (600 pages) book is the 40-year-old missing persons case that hero Mikael Blomkvist is assigned to investigate by an elderly, wealthy financier. I'm a sucker for books with cold cases, locked room mysteries and lots of shoe-leather procedural work, and on that count, Tattoo delivers.

However, that compelling story is wrapped in a lot of exposition about Mikael's job as a financial journalist and his conflict with Hans-Erik Wennerström, an industrialist/arms dealer. This paragraph, for instance, comes about 20 pages in:

"It sounds as though Wennerström frittered away a little money for AIA. But compared with the half billion that disappeared from Skanska or the CEO of ABB's golden parachute of more than a billion kronor -- which really upset people -- this doesn't seem to be much to write about," Blomkvist said. "Today's readers are pretty tired of stories about incompetent speculators, even if it's with public funds."

I happened to know that Skanska is a huge construction company. ABB is an engineering company (I had heard of it under its old name, ASEA). I don't know anything about the scandals mentioned. I guess the specifics don't matter too much, but the paragraph kind of stopped me in my tracks anyway; it doesn't seem like the stuff of thrillers.

If I had to guess why Dragon has become so popular, I'd say that it probably has more to do with Lisbeth Salander, the eponymous Girl who works with Blomkvist to help him solve his case. Lisbeth is a troubled punk hacker in her mid-20s whose computer expertise has led her to a job with a major security firm. Because of her genius, she gets to come and go as she wishes and only take assignments when she wants to. The Amazing Computer Expert Who Can Do Anything has become a stock character in many mystery novels and one I complain about a lot. But OK, Lisbeth is more interesting than most of them and a scene in which she extracts brutal revenge on a man who took advantage of her is violent yet undeniably compelling. (The original Swedish title of the book is Män som hatar kvinnor, that is, Men Who Hate Women.) There are several allusions made to horrifying incidents in Lisbeth's past, but apparently you have to read The Girl Who Played with Fire to find out about them.

Here is another clunky paragraph, this one about a new computer Lisbeth is buying:

Unsurprisingly she set her sights on the best available alternative: the new Apple PowerBook G4/1.0 GHz in an aluminium case with a Power-P.C. 7451 processor with an AltiVec Velocity Engine, 960 M.B. R.A.M. and a 60 G.B. hard drive. It had BlueTooth and built-in C.D. and D.V.D. burners. Best of all, it had the first 43-centimetre screen in the laptop world with N.V.I.D.I.A. graphics and a resolution of 1440x900 pixels...

I'm reading a mystery novel, not Computer Shopper.

Because I'd heard that the translation was not very good, I decided to read the English copy with a Swedish one open for reference. (My Swedish vocabulary is not quite advanced enough to allow me to get through such a long and difficult book.) Lee Goldberg, whom I linked to above, complained about all the cliches in the book, such as "dead as a door-nail." Here's an example from the English version: "Within twenty seconds he should be unconscious, and within a few minutes he would be dead as a door-nail." Swedish: "Inom tjugo sekunder skulle han vara medvetslös och inom några minuter stendöd." "Stendöd" would literally be translated as "stone-dead"; my Swedish-English dictionary does indeed list "dead as a door-nail" as a definition. Since "stone-dead" is an accepted idiom, I might have stuck with that if it had been my decision.

Here's another cliche that caught my eye: "Maybe he's just a square peg in a round hole who happens to be poisoning the atmosphere." Swedish: "Han kanske bara är en malplacerad skitstövel som sprider dålig stämning." Literally, "Maybe he's just an out-of-place shit-boot who spreads a bad atmosphere." "Skitstövlar" would be a pair of boots you wear to, say, muck out a stall (there's an informative illustration on this Wikipedia page), but "en skitstövel" is a term that's analogous to the English dick or asshole. So why not use the more forthright "asshole" instead of "square peg in a round hole"? I mean, there's plenty of swearing in the book already.

As with most works in translation, there are certain cultural references that can be hard to grasp unless you know the country in question. As they grew older, for instance, we are told that Lisbeth's punk friends began to buy clothes "more often from the H&M boutiques rather than from funky Myrorna." A check of the Swedish version shows that the translator added the modifier "funky." Swedes would know that Myrorna is a not a hip clothing shop but a thrift store akin to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. I would probably have written "rather than from the secondhand store."

In the translator's defense, Goldberg quoted the following note on his blog: "Sorry you didn't like the translation. I originally translated it into American English, but then the book was bought in the UK, and the Scottish editor really did a number on it -- hence my pseudonym. [NB: he chose not to use his real name on the book's cover.] I'm hoping Knopf's edition of books 2 & 3 will come out better." I don't know how much improved it would have been, but why the U.S. publisher (Knopf) didn't restore the original translation is a mystery to me. I have read some of the translator's other work and it flowed much better. The Mankell translations in particular are excellent.

I would say that Larsson, who wrote three books before dropping dead of a heart attack at the age of 50, is not a particularly great writer -- the paragraphs I quoted above aren't really any better in Swedish. He reminds me a little of Andrew Vachss, who has claimed that he "wouldn't write novels at all" were it not for the fact that he can use them to push his agenda (anti-child abuse, in his case). Larsson was an activist against racism and neo-Nazi movements in Sweden who lived under constant death threats; indeed, there was initial speculation that he was murdered. (In truth, his three-pack-a-day cigarette habit and workaholism were most likely what did him in; "he was warned again and again that he should look after himself," said his U.K. publisher.) The crusading, highly moral journalist Blomkvist is perhaps a bit of an alter ego. Amidst all of the "men who hate women" in the book, Blomkvist is a genuine good guy. And so, it seems, was Larsson.

White & Wheeler

2009-09-19T18:18:00.000-07:00

On the off chance that you feel this blog isn't being updated often enough, remember, you can always check out my Twitter feed or read my other blog, Talk Show News.

Now that Joe is a bit more mobile, we've finally started getting out a tad. Last night we went to the brand new Freight & Salvage. It's super-fancy compared to the old Freight, with a big lobby, gorgeous auditorium and -- praise be -- comfortable seats! It still "feels" like the Freight, though. They did a very nice job.

We've seen Cheryl Wheeler a bunch of times, but I always find her shows so comfortable and enjoyable. She tours with piano accompanist Kenny White, who opens for her, and he's a fabulous singer/songwriter in his own right. Knowing that the opening act is going to be as entertaining as the main attraction is a big plus with me.

Here are a couple of my favorite Cheryl songs. (She is a very successful songwriter, by the way, who has been covered by the likes of Bette Midler, Garth Brooks and Peter, Paul & Mary, but her fans know that no one sings 'em like Cheryl.) This is Wheeler at her most poignant:

And here's the wacky side of Cheryl, also showcasing her love of animals. (Many of her songs are about cats & dogs.) I wish I could have found a YouTube clip showing the introduction she did last night, where she talks about catash, the unusual percussion instrument that was used on the recording of the song.

Cheryl's new album Pointing at the Sun features her Cat Trilogy -- "White Cat," "Cat Accountant" and "My Cat's Birthday." Dog fanciers should check out "Howl at the Moon" from Mrs. Pinocci's Guitar.

10 movies you missed from the 2000s

2009-09-04T21:22:00.000-07:00

Most of my pals know that I've been stuck at home in the taking-care-of-an-invalid business for the past couple of weeks, so I haven't had a chance to get out and do exciting things that I can then write about. The only thing I've done outside the home that doesn't involve errands or volunteer work is seeing Meshuggah Beach Party at the local mall's free summer concert series:

I do love me some Meshuggah Beach Party.

Anyway, for the benefit of shut-ins and bored people everywhere who have nothing better to do over Labor Day weekend, here is a list of the 10 Movies From the 2000s That You've Never Seen, But Should Have. I would be very surprised if even the most ardent cinephiles are familiar with more than a couple of these films, because they are all box office underachievers (two of them weren't even released theatrically in the U.S., but are available on DVD). Add them to your Netflix queue and enjoy!

1. "Murderball" (2005). U.S. gross: $1.5 million. I think people avoided this film because it's about quadriplegics, and that sounds depressing. Trust me, it's not. This is an amazingly entertaining documentary.

2. "The Puffy Chair" (2005). U.S. gross: $192,000. The story of a boy, his girl, his brother... and a La-Z-Boy recliner, this seriocomic road trip film plays a little like a lo-fi version of "Sideways."

3. "The Lookout" (2007). U.S. gross: $4.5 million. Perhaps now that star Joseph Gordon-Levitt is getting raves for his appealing turn as the lovelorn swain in "(500) Days of Summer," this thoughtful and suspenseful heist movie will get a second life on DVD.

4. "He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not" (2002). U.S. gross: $1 million. You loved her in "Amelie," so check out another side of Audrey Tautou in Laetitia Colombani's romantic thriller. This is one of those surprise-filled films where the less you know, the more you'll enjoy it.

5. "Slim Susie" (2003). U.S. gross: not available. Swedes are notoriously critical of their own country's cinematic output, so the fact that this Tarantino-esque action comedy gets raves from Swedish movie fans in online forums tells you that this is a film that can stand toe to toe with American releases.

6. "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" (2006). U.S. gross: $300,000. If you've ever wondered why torture porn movies like "Saw" are rated R while one too many "f" words or a glimpse of a penis means an instant NC-17 (a.k.a. the kiss of death), check out Kirby Dick's documentary, which puts some dogged, hilarious and charismatic female investigators on the case.

7. "Sweet Land" (2005). U.S. gross: $1.7 million. For anyone who ever complained "they don't make 'em like that anymore," check out this sweet and moving romance about a young German woman who travels to Minnesota in the 1920s to marry a Norwegian farmer -- only to find that the townspeople won't accept her because of her ethnic heritage.

8. "The Deal" (2003). U.S. gross: not available. If you thought Michael Sheen was a dead ringer for Tony Blair in "The Queen," don't miss this film (made for British TV and scripted by "Queen" writer Peter Morgan) about the relationship between Blair and Gordon Brown during the 1980s and early '90s.

9. "The King of Kong" (2007). U.S. gross: $675,000. Obviously this riveting doc about two grown men battling for a video game championship never found its audience theatrically, perhaps because a movie about rival Donkey Kong players sounds unappealing. See it and believe it -- you'll be on the edge of your seat.

10. "The Hammer" (2007). U.S. gross: $443,000. This is another tough sell, as it stars and was written by former "Man Show" host and DJ Adam Carolla, and it's about boxing. But it's funny and heartwarming, just the sort of film that begs to be discovered by home viewers.

Go fish

2009-08-25T23:12:00.000-07:00

When it comes to the work of animation legend Hayao Miyazaki, I'll admit it: I'm a snob. I first encountered his work many years ago via a Japanese laser disk of "My Neighbor Totoro." At the time, I was watching a lot of anime -- "Ranma 1/2," "Oh My Goddess!," "Maison Ikkoku" -- but the utterly charming, emotionally resonant "Totoro" was obviously in a class by itself. Eventually, thanks in large part to the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, I was able to catch up on the rest of the Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli oeuvre. I'd skip "Pom Poko" if I were you, but otherwise, lots of brilliant stuff.

Here's where the "snob" part comes in. Until now, I've been able to find a screening of every Ghibli film in the original Japanese, with English subtitles. The latest Miyazaki film, "Ponyo," however, has been marketed a bit more aggressively than his other works. Disney has the American rights and has beefed up "Ponyo" with an all-star voice cast, including Cate Blanchett, Liam Neeson and Tina Fey. However, to me, it just doesn't seem right to see a Ghibli picture with American voice talent. Japanese kid voices are more kawaii (cuter) and the often-bizarre, fable-like nature of the stories just seem to go better with a Japanese soundtrack.

Maybe that's why "Ponyo," a beautifully drawn (of course) story about a five-year-old boy and his love for a girl who's part goldfish/part human (reportedly inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid") didn't make the same impact on me as Miyazaki's other work. I'm such a big "30 Rock" fan that I found Fey's voice a distraction. It was sort of cool hearing Betty White, though; between this movie and "The Proposal," she's gotten a couple of choice roles this summer.

I hope that the DVD of "Ponyo" includes the original Japanese language track. Take a listen to the original theme song in Japanese and then the godawful American version (sung by a Jonas brother and Miley Cyrus' sister) and maybe you'll understand why I look forward to seeing the non-Disney-ized "Ponyo." Still, if the American dub can turn a few more folks onto Miyazaki's work, that would be a net positive. The DVDs in current release do include the Japanese soundtrack; unless you're watching them with a kid who can't read yet, that's the way to go.

Next to godliness

2009-08-18T16:30:00.000-07:00

Occasionally, I have written about my ongoing battle with clutter. My particular problem area is anything involving paper: books, magazines, mail, newspapers, receipts, statements, etc. I have tried various methods to keep things under control, such as e-billing and reading the news online. And yet, I still struggle, with clutter and general housekeeping tasks.

A few years ago, I quoted Sandra Tsing Loh, who once said that she would never hire a cleaning lady for fear that she might turn out to be Barbara Ehrenreich. Articles like this one, which recently appeared in Salon.com, strengthen my resolve. Even though there are obviously people out there who need the money, how could I ever ask anyone else to clean up the long stray hairs I am constantly shedding? ("White surfaces and human hair have become the bane of my existence," writes the author of the Salon piece.) So I do the best I can. A few days ago, Joe complained that I had missed some cobwebs. I tend to have a sort of live-and-let-live attitude to spiders (it's not like we have brown recluses or black widows around here), so I told him that if he sees a cobweb and is bothered by it, he can get rid of it. Much as I'd love to spend my days vacuuming while wearing a string of pearls and a cute house dress, I have my clients to consider.

However, I have finally solved the cleaning dilemma. From now on, my home will be a bastion of tidiness. I will polish the wainscoting and promptly toss old magazines in the recycling bin.

What is my secret? A brand new program on the A&E Network called "Hoarders." A new episode will air every Monday night, and trust me, this show will motivate you to clean like you've never cleaned before.

Each week, "Hoarders" gives you a peek into the lives of two different troubled souls with hardcore clutter problems. On the debut episode, we met Jill, a food hoarder in Milwaukee, and Jennifer and Ron, a Kentucky couple with three kids. The family was pretty much your garden-variety set of slobs -- their "laundry basket" was their hall floor, and they ate all their meals on the bed because the kitchen table was too full of junk -- but Jill was in a league of her own. This woman was so bad that one of the professionals brought in to clean her kitchen had to run outside to hurl. The close-ups of rotting food and dead insects was stomach-churning for the viewers; I can't even imagine what it must have been like to have been inside her home.

Trucks from a junk-hauling service cleared out tons of stuff from Jennifer and Ron's place, but Jill fought tooth and nail to keep her expired chicken broth, convinced that if the container wasn't bulging, it was OK to eat. The fact that she hasn't dropped dead from salmonella or e-coli proves the woman must have a cast iron stomach. She obviously has severe mental problems that can't be solved by a quick fix on a reality show.

Nevertheless, once the show had aired, all I wanted to do was get out my stash of Method products and wipe down everything in sight. I set a TiVo season pass for the show, so I can watch it every week. It airs at 7 PM, which means there's a full evening ahead to spend organizing and tidying. After watching "Hoarders," not even the spiderwebs are safe.

Wouldn't it be loverly?

2009-08-15T19:24:00.000-07:00

We went to see the Lamplighters' production of "My Fair Lady" today. The company usually does Gilbert & Sullivan, but after seeing several of their shows, I'm at the point now where I'll go see whatever they do, since I know it'll be high quality. "My Fair Lady" was no exception -- the star trio of Sharon Rietkerk (Eliza), Tom Reardon (Higgins) and Geoff Hoyle (Alfred) was fabulous. I kind of had to twist Joe's arm to get him to come along, but he had a good time, and he had a front row seat to look at the beautiful lead actress!

I've seen the film version of "Lady" several times, despite the fact that it always ticks me off that Audrey Hepburn was cast as Eliza instead of Julie Andrews. I mean, I love Audrey -- who doesn't -- but she couldn't sing the vocally demanding role, so Marni Nixon had to dub her voice. Yes, even though the film was released before I was born, I can still work up a righteous anger about it on Andrews' behalf.

There is a rumor that a new version of "Lady," with Keira Knightley in the lead role, will soon be in production. I can't imagine remaking "Lady" in this day and age. Even as a period piece, some of it just seems faintly ridiculous to a modern audience. I must admit that I tittered when the misogynistic Henry Higgins -- who has recently allowed a male friend, Col. Pickering, to move in with him -- declared himself a "confirmed bachelor." One of his big numbers is entitled "A Hymn to Him," with the repeated refrain, "Why can't a woman be more like a man?" "Men are so friendly, good natured and kind/A better companion you never will find." If you love men so much, why not marry one? (Provided you live in Massachusetts or Iowa, of course.)

At the end of the show, Eliza -- whose initial goal was to get a job working in a posh flower shop -- only seems to have two options: marry the insufferable Freddy, who has a title but no money, or stay with the downright cruel Higgins, who assures her that he will never change his ways and that he treats everyone poorly. Of course, she returns to Henry, who we are led to believe was heartbroken by her departure but he celebrates her comeback by barking, "Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?"

I like to think that Eliza gets some start-up money from Col. Pickering and opens a high end florist shop, specializing in arrangements for upper crust galas. Henry's mom Mrs. Higgins helps her develop a client base. Doolittle's Flowers becomes a massive success, and Eliza is able to employ some of her old flower girl friends to help create the bouquets. She hires Freddy as her deliveryman. Meanwhile, "confirmed bachelors" Pickering and Higgins travel the world together, making recordings of unusual dialects, and Alfred P. Doolittle uses his £4000 a year allowance to open his own pub. They all live happily ever after.

Blogging: The Motion Picture

2009-08-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

We went to see "Julie & Julia" last night, wisely going after dinner. To be honest, I was kind of excited to see what I'm pretty sure is the first major motion picture to celebrate blogging. Julie Powell (Amy Adams) was a pretty early adopter -- she started her blog back in 2002 -- but her concerns will resonate with anyone who has ever kept an online journal. The self-absorption! The obsession with followers and comments! The worry that only your mom is reading your blog! And then something I've luckily never had to deal with: marital strife caused by blogging! Julie's husband walks out on her because she becomes overly preoccupied with her project to cook all of the recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, after giving a little speech that reminded me of Aimee Mann's boyfriend in that old "Voices Carry" video: "This little hobby of yours has gone too far!"

I must admit that I relished the fact that aside from their one little marital spat, Julie's husband is the sort of supportive cipher that, in most films, is played by a female -- the typical wife/girlfriend role. The tables, they have been turned!

Much as I love Amy Adams, though, it's obvious to any viewer that "Julie & Julia" is Meryl Streep's star vehicle. She overflows with joie de vivre as Child, who is depicted as an irrepressible force of nature. Nothing can stop her, from a snooty cooking school chief who doesn't want to give her a diploma, to being exiled to Oslo after her diplomat husband's four-year term in Paris comes to an end. The 5'6" Streep is somehow shot in a way to make her look absolutely towering (Child was 6'2"). I'm sure some of it was just camera trickery, but really, Streep is such an amazing actor that I wouldn't put it past her if she grew an extra few inches just for the role -- kind of how she mastered a flawless Polish accent for "Sophie's Choice."

Speaking of legends, I want to say a word in tribute to the great Les Paul, who died at the age of 94. We saw him in New York a few years ago at his Monday night residency at Iridium Jazz Club, and were amazed at his energy and high spirits -- after the show, he stuck around to sign autographs and speak to everyone who wanted to meet him. Anyone who loves rock and roll owes Paul a debt of gratitude.

In an era when actresses often have a hard time finding meaningful work after they turn 40, it delights me that the un-lifted, un-Botoxed Streep gets juicy parts to play every year. I sincerely hope that Streep, like Paul, is able to stay active well into her 90s.

Summer of Spike: "Bamboozled"

2009-08-04T09:46:00.000-07:00

#2 in a 17-part series

Like most people, I missed Spike Lee's "Bamboozled" during its brief theatrical run in 2000, but I was interested in seeing it because it was a true Passion Project -- a blatantly uncommercial film about the portrayal of African-Americans in the media, a story Lee believed needed to be told.

Comedian Damon Wayans ("My Wife and Kids," "In Living Color") stars as Harvard-educated TV writer Pierre Delacroix, and his overly mannered performance is instantly offputting -- it's like he's channeling Eddie Murphy playing "Mr. White" in that old "Saturday Night Live" sketch. The film begins with Delacroix reading the dictionary definition of "satire." Very subtle, Spike!

Delacroix's boss at the network, Thomas Dunwitty (Michael Rapaport), is a white guy whose office is filled with African art and giant portraits of black sports stars. "I have a black wife and two biracial kids. Brother man, I'm blacker than you," he tells Pierre. When Delacroix proposes a new TV show starring two homeless street performers (Savion Glover and Tommy Davidson) he passes every day on the way to work, Dunwitty loves the idea, despite the outrageous premise -- the men will be rechristened Mantan and Sleep 'n Eat, and their "New Millennium Minstrel Show" will be set in a watermelon patch on an Alabama plantation. All of the performers on the show will be African-American, and they must all wear blackface.

At the first taping, the audience is confused and disgusted, but the program soon becomes a hit. (I suspect a lot of the comedy routines shown in the film were taken directly from old vaudeville sketches.) It's controversial -- Al Sharpton and Johnnie Cochran picket the network headquarters. Despite his success, Pierre seems to be slowly going mad, surrounding himself with Mammy and pickaninny dolls and images of blacks with huge red lips.

A subplot in the film features Pierre's assistant, Sloan (Jada Pinkett-Smith), whose brother is a gangsta rapper named Big Blak Afrika; no "c"s, because "they don't even pronounce that shit!" Lee is obviously trying to show the parallels between gold-chain-wearing rappers -- many of whom appeal to an audience consisting primarily of suburban white teenagers -- and the minstrel show performers of old. A couple of fake commercials, one for malt liquor and one for oversized streetwear, are pointed and funny, obviously benefiting from Lee's years of experience shooting TV commercials.

With a two hour and 15 minute running time, "Bamboozled" is at least half an hour too long, and Lee seems to take the easy way out for the ending. In my opinion, a better take on the same themes is 2004's "CSA (Confederate States of America)," a faux documentary that imagines a United States where the North lost the Civil War and slavery became the law of the land. "CSA" also features fake TV ads and forces viewers to confront racist images -- both films depict Abraham Lincoln in blackface -- but it's not as over-the-top and obvious as "Bamboozled."

The making-of documentary on the DVD reveals that because of the low budget, Lee shot his film on digital video using home movie-quality cameras, and even on TV, it looks pretty crummy. It's by far the least interesting looking Spike Lee movie I've seen to date.

My rating: ** (out of 4)

Spikiest Moments: Spike gets self-referential! A brief clip from his "Malcolm X" is shown (the film's title is taken from a Malcolm X quote: "You've been hoodwinked. You've been had. You've been took. You've been led astray, led amok. You've been bamboozled"), and early in the movie, Dunwitty tells Delacroix, "I don’t give a goddamn what that prick Spike Lee says, Tarantino was right: Nigger is just a word."

Double Dolly Effect: Wayans, in the first two minutes of the movie. It made me think of how Alfred Hitchcock started putting his cameo appearances early in his films, so that viewers wouldn't be distracted because they were trying to spot him.

Big Visa is watching you

2009-08-02T21:53:00.000-07:00

Oh, the sad, neglected blog! As some of my pals know, I am in the middle of a 2-week-long job which is taking up most of my time (it ends on Friday). During the past week, I have managed to get out to a mystery salon with author Stanley Trollip (one half of the writing duo Michael Stanley, authors of the Detective Kubu novels); a Stephen Sondheim musical revue, "Putting It Together"; a couple of dinners out with friends; and a movie that I swear isn't as dirty as it sounds. So far, the only crises have occurred on Saturday around 4 PM and Sunday morning around 11 AM, and both times I was right there at the computer to troubleshoot. There's a little bit of luck and skill involved in creating the illusion that you are monitoring the situation 24/7.

A few days ago, I was looking for something on the Marketplace Radio web site when I noticed a link in their list of the most popular stories. As of this writing, it's still in the top five, even though it was originally published on July 8, so it's obviously captured the public imagination. The article is titled "10 purchases not to put on credit cards." "Certain types of purchases can be red flags to credit-card companies watching for signs of consumers with questionable finances. Here are 10 compiled with the help of Robert Manning, author of Credit Card Nation."

The verboten items include pornography and strip clubs, which could be "seen as escapism by card companies. And guess what they're thinking you're trying to escape from? Financial worries." Spas and massages are also no-nos: "It may look like you're trying to relax because you're worried about -- what else -- money. Or, that you're trying to reduce stress from a job loss, or pretty up for a job search." And keep your credit card in your wallet when you're going out for a cocktail; that bar tab "may be a sign of job stress, financial stress, or relationship stress." (Note to self: hit ATM before going to Forbidden Island.)

If the credit card companies notice that you're suddenly putting booze or porn on your plastic, or that you're retreading your tires ("You'd be surprised how many people do this. Why? Usually, because they can't afford new tires"), your credit limit could plummet, or your card could even wind up being canceled.

My credit card limit is pretty high, and I seldom use more than a fraction of it -- I could use my Visa to charge a reasonably priced new car, but the bank would probably assume I was buying a new auto because financial stress is causing me to have a midlife crisis, and poof, my card would disappear. In fact, now that I'm aware of this monitoring, I'm going to be extra careful before I say, "Charge it!" As a public service, here are eight more places where you should never pay with plastic:

Scott's Shoes: Why would I need new shoes? Obviously, I'm going to be pounding the pavement soon to look for a new job.

Christianbook.com: There's only one reason to stock up on new Bibles: because of all the praying you're going to be doing soon. "Dear God, please help me pay my bills on time this month." Also, be sure not to order titles like Financial Armageddon: What You Must Do to Survive the Devastation of an Economic Collapse, Surviving Financial Meltdown and Digging Out of the Money Pit: 30 Biblical Solutions to Your Financial Headaches.

Fastrak: Sure, it allows you to get across the bridges more quickly, but there's only one way to pay for it: with plastic! More trips to San Francisco obviously mean you're going on job interviews, because you're afraid the axe is going to fall on you at any moment in your current job.

Kohl's: Who buys clothing at the discount department store? People who can't afford anything better. "Shopping at places that attract financially pinched shoppers... makes it look like you're worried about your finances or about your job," writes Manning. "American Express has been accused of cutting people's credit because they shopped at Wal-Mart." Little did I know when I bought that cute Vera Wang top a couple weeks ago that I was putting my plastic at risk.

Nordstrom: This upscale retailer, on the other hand, is also verboten. A sudden spree could only mean one thing: you need new "interview suits." The hiring manager isn't going to be impressed by your unfashionably long jacket or your scuffed old loafers. (You could get them resoled, but use cash, or it'll be tire retreading syndrome all over again.)

The ice cream parlor: For some, it's the booze; for others, it's the butterfat. The super-premium stuff at Tucker's or Fenton's is so pricey that you'll be tempted to whip out your MasterCard, but don't do it -- your bank knows that "emotional eating" is a sign of financial stress.

The movie theater: If porn is seen as "escapism," then what is "Transformers 2"? Megan Fox is basically Sasha Grey with tattoos.

Chuck E. Cheese: Sure, you thought you were charging a birthday party for your child, but Visa knows better. That animatronic rat's deliciously cheesy pizza is comfort food for your poor youngster, who hasn't been able to sleep at night because "Daddy's job is going away."

Summer of Spike: "25th Hour"

2009-07-24T13:24:00.000-07:00

For my money, the most brilliant and idiosyncratic American filmmaker working today is Spike Lee. He is an amazing and versatile talent who puts his stamp on everything he directs.

Over the next couple of months, I have decided to watch the entire Lee oeuvre -- re-watching the masterpieces ("Do the Right Thing," "Inside Man") and taking a first look at the lesser films I never bothered with ("Girl 6," "She Hate Me"). As far as I've been able to determine from Lee's IMDB page, this is a complete list of his full-length, narrative, theatrical features:

She's Gotta Have It (1986)
School Daze (1988)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Mo' Better Blues (1990)
Jungle Fever (1991)
Malcolm X (1992)
Crooklyn (1994)
Clockers (1995)
Girl 6 (1996)
Get on the Bus (1996)
He Got Game (1998)
Summer of Sam (1999)
Bamboozled (2000)
25th Hour (2002)
She Hate Me (2004)
Inside Man (2006)
Miracle at St. Anna (2008)

Of course, Lee has also done a lot of documentary and TV work ("Freak," "4 Little Girls," "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts"), but I'm going to stick with the fiction films for now.

Each film will be rated on a scale of one to four stars. I will also choose the movie's Spikiest Moment (the scene which really lets you know you're watching a Spike Lee Joint) and say whether or not the Double Dolly Effect is used (the camera and the actor are placed on a dolly and pushed in order to make the actor look like he is floating or gliding -- if you've seen any of Lee's work, you know what I'm talking about; he discusses the technique in this interview).

2002's "25th Hour," starring Edward Norton as drug dealer Monty Brogan, who has been sentenced to a seven-year prison sentence, was the first major film made in New York City after 9/11/01. The entire movie takes place during Monty's last 24 hours of freedom before he has to report to jail upstate. You wouldn't think a drug dealer would be sympathetic, but the very first scene shows Monty rescuing a seriously injured dog! How can you hate someone who rescued a dog? As you get to know Monty's friends and his father, you feel sorry that he made such terrible choices and essentially threw away his life. The post-9/11 backdrop gives the film an additional sense of gravitas, as the camera focuses on Ground Zero and pans over the sidewalk shrines to the firemen and other rescue workers who died during the fall of the Twin Towers.

The secondary plot involving Monty's friend Jacob (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a teacher at the exclusive prep school that both men once attended (Monty was expelled for dealing pot), and his infatuation with one of his students (Anna Paquin) never really pays off. Not quite the masterpiece some have declared it, "25th Hour" finally achieves true greatness in its achingly powerful final 15 minutes.

My rating: ***1/2 stars (out of 4)

Spikiest Moment: The mirror scene in which Norton yells "Fuck you" to "this whole city and everyone in it" over a montage of diverse New Yorkers, from "the squeegee men dirtying up the clean windshield of my car" to "the Upper East Side wives with their Hermes scarves and their fifty-dollar Balducci artichokes."

Double Dolly Effect: Hoffman and Paquin, in the nightclub scene.

If I could talk to the animals

2009-07-20T20:11:00.001-07:00

After we adopted Hobie, I was always so curious about where he came from -- he was a stray who had been picked up and taken to an animal shelter -- that I used to say to Joe that I wanted to take him to an animal psychic, so I could find out about his life before we adopted him. Surely such a loving dog must have had a good home for at least a few years. (He was thought to be between 4 and 7 when we got him; I'm guessing he was at the upper end of that scale.) However, I had my skepticism about the alleged psychic link between people and dogs. OK, I pretty much figured it was B.S. Then I read an outrageously funny article by Harmon Leon in the SF Weekly (available online!) and decided my instincts were correct.

Still, I couldn't quite shake my desire to find out more about the world of animal communication. So when I had the chance to take Bibi to a 15-minute session, in exchange for a small donation to our local Humane Society, I figured I had nothing to lose. I mean, I give money to them anyway! It was a win-win!

The "animal intuitive" doing the fundraiser was Napa-based Barbara Martin, who says on her web site that she was not born with the ability to communicate with animals, but learned it through workshops. She does not describe herself as a pet psychic. "All humans have the ability to communicate with animals," she states in her FAQ. But what do they have to say, other than "Feed me!" and "Is it time for my walk yet? Is it? Is it?!?!?!" Let's find out!

Barbara asked me how old Bibi was and how long we'd had her. Then she stopped me before I could reveal anything further, saying that she wanted to listen to Bibi. She put her head in her hands for a couple of minutes and said that Bibi described herself as "brave" and "tough." I guess that's fairly accurate -- she can be pretty scrappy.

Here are some of the other things that came up during the session:

Bibi does not like very young children -- now, keep in mind that I had not said anything about the circumstances in which we adopted her, but she was surrendered to rescue because she had nipped the child in her previous home. That home was more "chaotic" than ours, so leaving wasn't as stressful as it could have been.

When she arrived at our house, Bibi thought, "This is where I should be," and realized she had to be on her best behavior because she wanted to stay here, and knew it wasn't necessarily going to be a permanent situation. (True: we had initially only agreed to foster her.) False: Barbara stated that it took about two months for us to decide to adopt her. It was more like two days, because Joe fell in love with her almost immediately. It probably would have taken me two months.

She is "fussy" and "bossy" about food. That is true. She would not eat the kibble we had fed Hobie, and we finally settled on a mix of Nutro dry and Trader Joe's canned food. Bibi also has a refreshing tendency not to eat food she finds on the street during our walks; once, she even trotted right past a discarded bag of fast food French fries!

Barbara said she saw an area in the yard that Bibi was not allowed to go in, because of a loose plank or board. That was true -- shortly after we got her, Bibi escaped through a hole in the fence that we hadn't realized was there (it was covered with ivy), and was returned by a neighbor who had found her before we even knew she was gone. However, we were so freaked out by the incident that we replaced the entire fence, so now she can come and go as she pleases.

I was told that Bibi liked doing agility with Joe, which isn't true -- he takes her to the dog park every weekend, but she pretty much just runs around; nothing as organized as jumping through hoops.

I was asked if I had any questions for Bibi. I was curious if she knew there had been another dog in the house previously. Barbara asked if the dog's name was "Honey," which isn't all that far off. Anyway, Bibi is aware, but she's fine with it; she knows we're genuine "dog people."

I also said I would really like it if she would sit on my lap once in a while, which she never does. According to Barbara, Bibi's immediate response was, "Why?" Well, what do you say to that? Because it would be pleasant. Apparently, lap-sitting has just never been her thing, but Barbara said she would ask Bibi to give it a try. "Invite her onto your lap," she instructed me. "Just don't grab her or pick her up."

On the whole, my impression via Barbara was that Bibi is a pretty well-adjusted, happy dog, which is pretty much what I had already figured. (Hobie was a lot more neurotic; his various personality tics seemed to give him more depth somehow.)

That evening, Bibi sat on my lap for about 20 minutes.

Cheesy

2009-07-19T16:54:00.000-07:00

Last night, we went to Bimbo's 365 Club in San Francisco to see Richard Cheese & Lounge Against the Machine. The group's shtick is that Cheese (real name: Mark Davis) is an old-style lounge singer, except all of the songs he sings are covers, the more inappropriate, the better: the Pussycat Dolls' "Dont Cha," the 2 Live Crew's "Me So Horny," Nine Inch Nails' "Closer," etc. I have become pretty familiar with the Cheese oeuvre, since Joe is a big fan and has all his CDs.

Joe also loves "Weird Al" Yankovic, the undisputed king of song parodies, but I found Cheese's albums to be a bit one-note compared to Al's. After all, Al performs in the styles of everyone from Devo to Coolio to the Doors, whereas all of Cheese's songs are done in the same smooth, lounge-lizard style. (Here's a video of him performing a medley of Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back" and Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus.") Seeing him live, however, helped me "get" Cheese a bit more. His three-piece band, anchored by keyboard player Bobby Ricotta (a.k.a. Noel Melanio, an L.A.-based composer/arranger), is indisputably talented -- when one fan yelled Michael Jackson's name, for instance, they effortlessly slipped into "Billie Jean." And maybe it's just a sign of getting older, but the swingin' versions of some of these songs sound better to me than the originals. Take Disturbed's aggro-metal "Down with the Sickness," for instance -- Cheese's finger-snapping rendition puts a happy face on lyrics like "Madness is a gift that has been given to me... Get ready to die," poking a bit of fun at the often humorless headbanging genre, but also teasing out a pretty pleasant melody and beat.

Cheese also had a lot of fun interacting with the audience at the sold-out show, rearranging the front row so that a couple hot looking women were seated directly in front of him, and pacing around the room with his wireless mic, often stopping to chat briefly with audience members while the band vamped. If someone did something silly -- one guy made a loud ululating noise, and later, another one yelled out the word "Shots!" -- Cheese would stop the show until someone 'fessed up to the action, at which point he would poke good-natured fun at them. (The "Shots" guy actually did wind up buying a round of shots for the band.)

However, heavy are the shoulders that wear the tiger-striped tuxedo jacket; Cheese has announced that this is his "farewell tour" in his lounge lizard persona, though according to this fascinating Phoenix New Times story, he has made that claim before -- and, in fact, he suggested to the Bimbo's audience last night that he might be back on New Year's Eve. Life as the big Cheese is obviously a hard habit to break.

The 384 Steps

2009-07-17T17:53:00.001-07:00

I woke up this morning filled with the overwhelming urge to do something different today. It was a beautiful day, so I decided to take the bus over to San Francisco and walk up the Filbert Steps, something I hadn't done in many years. The Filbert Steps run up the side of Telegraph Hill, and when you finally get to the top, you can walk around Coit Tower and enjoy the views. (For $5, you can take the elevator up to the observation deck, but there was a line and it seemed a bit claustrophobic; you can still go inside and look at the murals for free.)

It was an unusually clear day, and while there was a bit of fog rolling in from the Pacific, the views looking toward the East Bay were spectacular. I didn't think to bring my camera, but really, there's no shortage of photos on the web, so it's no great loss. I went down the other side of the hill, taking time to stop by tiny Jack Early Park and watch the ferries heading to and from Alcatraz.

When I got to the bottom, I started heading back toward the Embarcadero. A few steps ahead of me were three people: a gray-haired guy, a woman, and a girl of maybe 10 or 12. I'm not sure exactly what happened, because I wasn't really paying attention, but apparently, a guy in a red car who was trying to pull out of a parking space was cut off by another driver who zoomed past him. The guy in the red car started yelling at the driver, but it was pretty fruitless because he was gone. Instead, he decided to vent his ire on the gray-haired dude, who had apparently made the mistake of looking at him the wrong way. I'm pretty sure he didn't say anything, or at least, I didn't hear him say anything.

"What the fork is the matter with you, you gray-haired fork?" he yelled. (Note: he did not actually use the word "fork.") Gesturing wildly with his middle finger, he continued to swear at the man, who kept walking, along with the two others. I hoped they weren't tourists, otherwise they'd have a pretty bad impression of San Franciscans. I assumed that was the end of it, but I was oh so wrong, because after a block or so, Red Car came up and stopped in the street so he could continue to address Gray Hair. He was screaming. I don't remember everything he said, but he definitely accused Gray Hair of being "one of those forking Christians" -- I don't know where that came from. Gray Hair asked him, "What is your problem?" which just set him off further. Red Car threatened all sorts of violence before driving off. At this point, I turned left and Gray Hair and his companions kept walking straight ahead. I hope that was the last they saw of the motorist. It was very scary, and really shook me up; I can't even imagine what it would have been like to be the target of his spleen-venting.

My Encounters with Anger were not over, however. On the bus back home was a mother and young child, maybe 5 or 6. He was crying when they got on the bus and didn't stop, despite the fact that she kept telling him to "shut up." Her voice got increasingly louder. "Shut up or I'm going to whoop your ass," she threatened, and when that didn't work, she made the even more sinister remark: "If you don't SHUT UP RIGHT NOW, you're going to have to go over to your other grandma's." What horrors could await there? Maybe, like at the Simpsons' Patty and Selma, the only beverages on offer are "clamato, Mr. Pibb and soy milk." He finally stopped crying, so the Mother of the Year could move on to yelling at him to wipe his nose.

A few days ago, I was talking to some friends about a new age theory that all of our health issues are caused by certain emotions or thought patterns. My chronic shoulder pain is, apparently, caused by "repressed anger, wanting to hit someone." I mentioned that I thought this was kind of funny, because I don't think of myself as being an angry person at all. I get peeved or annoyed sometimes -- listening to the grandstanding senators at the Sotomayor hearings, for instance. But I wouldn't say I'm a ticking time bomb of repressed anger.

Then again, if repressing anger leads to pain, is expressing anger healthy? If so, the guy in the red car and the mom on the bus must be in tip-top condition.

Wicked cool

2009-07-08T14:51:00.001-07:00

As a theatergoer, the biggest risk I take is buying a ticket to a big Broadway musical. They are expensive ($90-100 per ticket) and there's always the risk that I will be sorely disappointed, as I was with "Spamalot," "Spring Awakening" and "Chicago." But they're so enjoyable when they're good that I can't resist paying my money and taking my chances that I'll see something I love, like "Avenue Q," "The Producers" and "Jersey Boys."

Last night's gamble was "Wicked," which had its pre-Broadway tryout in San Francisco way back in 2003 and has been packing in the crowds in New York since it opened almost six years ago. I remembered reading that "Wicked" was especially popular with young girls because of its storyline about the friendship between the teenaged Glinda and Elphaba (the future Glinda the Good and Wicked Witch of the West). I feared it might be a similar experience to "Spring Awakening" where I kept thinking, "Gee, I would have loved this -- when I was 16." Parents just don't understand!

Anyway, I'm extremely pleased to report that I loved "Wicked" and like "The Wizard of Oz," it truly is magical fun for all ages. The current San Francisco production opened back in January and is selling tickets through late September, though considering how full the Orpheum Theater was last night, further extensions seem like a definite possibility.

Glinda and Elphaba meet at college, where they wind up being forced to room together despite their differences -- namely, Glinda is a super-popular perky blonde, and Elphaba is... green. She was raised by her widowed father, the governor of Munchkinland, who blatantly favored her disabled sister Nessarose. She may be in a wheelchair, but at least she's not green.

After declaring their mutual "unadulterated loathing" for one another, of course the girls do wind up becoming friends of a sort, and Glinda even tries to make her roommate "Popular," in one of the evening's catchiest songs. But things fall apart, as they so often do, when they fall for the same guy.

This musical has a lot of plot, perhaps not surprisingly for a play based on a 500+ page book. It's almost three hours long, including intermission, but it certainly held my interest throughout. The sets and costumes are breathtaking, and the performers were all excellent. It was fun to see Patty Duke in a supporting role as the college headmistress.

Joe and I both agreed that theatergoers definitely get their money's worth with "Wicked." If you want to see a huge, splashy, high-energy blockbuster, check it out. One small caveat: we were sitting on the left-hand side of the theater, and there are a couple of spiral staircases at either end of the proscenium arch that sometimes obscured certain parts of the stage. I'd suggest trying to get a seat in the center section, even if it means you'll be sitting a bit further back.

eBay Live

2009-07-05T19:50:00.000-07:00

For months, I've been meaning to make it to the Alameda Antique & Collectibles Faire (sic), which takes place on the first Sunday of the month on the decommissioned Navy base. I've been trying to find a few furnishings -- two Mission-style side tables and a set of four dining chairs -- so this morning, I finally got around to making the trek. I arrived shortly after 9 AM, when the admission price goes down to $5. (If you arrive at 6 AM, you pay $15; at 7:30 AM, the fee drops to $10.) Any worries that all of "the good stuff" had been snapped up before I arrived were soon put to rest.

I was totally unprepared for the vastness of this mega-flea market. The only comparisons I can make are to the final scene of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," in that endless warehouse, or to eBay -- as if the entire site had suddenly sprung out of the Web and into reality. To say it's "large" or "huge" would be an understatement. It's enormous.

After walking approximately a half mile from my parking space to the entrance gate, I decided to check out the booths on the right side of the aisle, then, when I came to the end, go up the left side. I was a little disappointed to note that there wasn't a ton of furniture. It was mostly smaller stuff: jewelry, glassware, old toys, sheet music, vintage clothing, Pez dispensers, postcards, etc. Perhaps the oddest thing I saw was an old asbestos shingle cutter. There are over 800 vendors, according to the web site, and all of them are supposed to abide by the rule that everything for sale must be at least 20 years old. I saw a few cheaters -- a "Pirates of the Caribbean" replica ship (from the 2003 Johnny Depp movie), a stack of 2007 magazines, a box of CDs (Beck's Odelay won't turn 20 'til 2016!) -- but mainly the stuff was, indeed, pre-1989. One retailer had a rack of acid-wash jeans -- God forbid those ever come back into style!

The only thing I considered buying was a small dime slot machine marked "Souvenir of Reno." It cost $35. I've always wanted to own a vintage slot machine, preferably one of those huge Bell Fruit Gum nickel slots, but I thought it might be a fun thing to have. I'm not sure if it was a real slot machine or just a coin bank. Unfortunately, I didn't note the location of the booth and lost track of it. Later, I realized that each aisle is marked by a painted letter on the ground, so you will know to go back to, say, Row O. There were also some marvelous vintage U.K. bus destination blinds, but they were a bit pricier (around $250).

The other thing I've always coveted is an art deco tabletop cigarette dispenser like the one in my grandparents' old rental house in Ft. Lauderdale. You pulled on the top and the cigarettes unfurled like the petals of a flower. I don't smoke, but I thought it was ultra-cool. If I had one, I would get some fake cigarettes to keep in it.

Anyway, I struck out on everything I was searching for, but it was fun to look -- up to a point. After about an hour and a half, I was exhausted. It's the same kind of mental and physical overload I get when I spend too long in a big museum -- I need a break. If I return, I'll take advantage of the vast array of food booths for a rest and a snack.

If you're in the Bay Area, the next Antiques Faire is Aug. 2. Bring some good walking shoes and a warm coat (it's right on the water, and there are stiff breezes blowing off the bay).

"I've been to the zoo."

2009-07-02T21:53:00.000-07:00

We saw Edward Albee's "At Home at the Zoo" at A.C.T. last night, bringing the season to a close. The play's history is quite interesting. Act Two, "The Zoo Story," was written in 1958 and became a popular one-act, winning an Obie Award for best play. Act One, "Homelife," was written almost 50 years after "Zoo," and the playwright now insists that they be performed together. "It kept occurring to me, probably from very early on, with the first production, that it's not quite in balance, I don't know enough about Peter," Albee told the San Francisco Chronicle. Then I got very busy for a number of years, and one day, about 10 years ago, it occurred to me to fix it. Then I waited about another five years and fixed it."

That's probably some kind of record. In any case, despite the fame of "Zoo," "Homelife," a scene from the marriage of Peter, one of the two characters in "Zoo," is perhaps the stronger of the acts. "I think the first act is a little better written than the second," said Albee. "I think I've learned my craft a little more."

Anthony Fusco, a familiar face at A.C.T., plays Peter in sort of a low-key, slightly nebbishy, Bob Newhartian manner. I had never seen "Zoo" before, so I was able to experience the play as a whole. Both acts revolve around extended monologues: "Homelife" builds to a set piece in which the long-married Peter tells his wife, Ann (Rene Augesen), about a college sexual encounter that went wrong; "Zoo" features a seemingly random encounter in Central Park between Peter and Jerry (Manoel Felciano), in which the latter man tells "the story about the dog" -- his attempt to befriend, and then kill, a neighbor's hostile pet.

Peter is sitting on a park bench reading a book, minding his own business, when the manic, overbearing Jerry comes up to him and strikes up a conversation. It reminded me a little too much of times when I've been accosted by random people on the bus who want to chat (admittedly, that doesn't happen so much in Oakland as it did in Berkeley; plus, I have learned to wear my iPod, even if I'm not actually listening to anything). I think the tragic outcome of the encounter totally vindicates my instincts not to want to talk to strangers.

Anyway, it's a very good production, and while Felciano has by far the showier role, I think the night belongs to Fusco and his nuanced portrayal of Peter. Afterward, Joe expressed some regret over our earlier decision not to renew our season tickets, but I assured him that we can keep going -- I just want the ability to steer clear of any clunkers like "War Music." Next season kicks off with an innovative-sounding British production of Noel Coward's "Brief Encounter."

As I do every year, let's rank the 2008-09 plays from best to worst! (Can you guess what the "worst" will be?)

1. "The Quality of Life" by Jane Anderson
2. "Boleros for the Disenchanted" by Jose Rivera
3. "At Home at the Zoo" by Edward Albee
4. "Rock and Roll" by Tom Stoppard - this might have been a tad too erudite for me but Joe ranks it #1.
5. "Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins" by Stephen Temperley - I didn't write much about this one, but it was much more fun than I expected, and Judy Kaye was heartbreakingly good as Jenkins.
6. "Rich & Famous" by John Guare
7. "War Music" by Lillian Groag

I suspect that Joe might argue that "Rich & Famous" was more painful to sit through than "War Music," but I would argue that while "Rich & Famous" was garden-variety bad, "War Music" was so misguided that it should never have made it to the big stage. It was commissioned by A.C.T., so presumably they would have lost a bundle if they had pulled the plug on it, but I just have to believe that the artistic directors and actors knew they had a stinker on their hands and decided to muddle through.

Sugar Sugar

2009-06-29T19:39:00.000-07:00

I mentioned earlier this month that I was giving up sugar for the month of June, and am now reporting back to say that I did it -- sort of. It is extremely difficult to cut sugar and high fructose corn syrup completely out of your diet unless you shun processed food altogether.

On the "pro" side, I found out about some products which I really enjoyed and plan to keep in my regular diet. Galaxy Granola's "not sweet vanilla" flavor is delicious and I bought a new bag today (it's available at Whole Foods) even though the sugar experiment ends tomorrow. I also found I prefer Organicville ketchup to Heinz -- for one thing, it's thicker so you don't get that "ketchup water" in the first squeeze that you do with most brands. However, trying to find veggie burgers that have no added sugar is too much trouble. I only found one brand (Safeway's Eating Right) and they're OK, but I prefer my old Trader Joe's standby.

We went to a couple of events where cake was served, and I had no trouble avoiding them. I read a fabulous piece on the blog Kateharding.net about the problem many women have with overeating -- the author eventually realized that there wasn't a "worldwide fry shortage looming," and she could eat French fries if she felt like eating them, and if she didn't, she could eat something else. I just decided that this month I wasn't going to eat sugar, and to bear in mind that there's no worldwide cake shortage, and eventually I hope to decide on a case-by-case basis, do I really want to eat cake today, or would I rather have another slice of watermelon? (I did have one dessert that undoubtedly had some sugar in it -- a fruit crisp at Rivoli. Usually I head straight for anything chocolate, but I have to say that the fruit crisp was awfully good.)

The rest of my slip-ups were pretty much inadvertent: one instance of eating restaurant ketchup (maybe Organicville should make their product available in little packets!); a few dried cherries; and some cranberry juice, which probably had high fructose corn syrup in it. I had rum at Forbidden Island, which Joe pointed out is fermented sugar cane.

All in all, I think it's a good idea to once in a while try to shake up your old habits, as our pals Michael & Susan are doing this month with their car-free challenge. Learn some new things, eat some new foods, break out of your usual routine.