Reading in Trees

Baby Its Cold Outside... Banana Nut Bread

2012-01-14T13:16:00.000-06:00

Banana Nut Bread (Janice's recipe)

Baby its cold outside ... and MM was asking for the recipe, so here it is… best banana nut bread recipe ever from our (Williamsport) childhood babysitter who really was a great lady.

1 cup Sugar

2 Eggs

½ cup Margarine

1 tsp. Vanilla

½ cup Sour cream

1 ½ cup Flour

1 tsp. Baking soda

½ tsp. Salt

1 cup Mashed bananas

½ c. Chopped nuts

_______________________________

· Preheat the oven, grease a loaf pan.

· Cream margarine, sugar, eggs and vanilla.

· Add dry ingredients, then banana, nut, sour cream, mix well.

· Bake 1 hour at 350º

· For Muffins, Bake at 350º for 25 minutes appx.

Review: There is an Outsider and Monster and Princess in All of Us

2011-11-26T16:48:00.001-06:00

I read the YA Paranormal Romance, Switched today. Is it the best book ever? No. Does it have some flaws? Yes. Is it a fun read with memorable characters? Yes. Would I recommend it? Depends on who we're talking about. If I'm recommending to a snobby reader, then no. If I'm recommending a fun YA paranormal romance to one of the girls... then, definitely.

Look, there are some character development issues, but generally Wendy Everly is a heroine who is easy to empathize with as we all have an outsider and monster (and princess) inside us. Does what she does and say always make sense (or the other characters for that matter)? Maybe not, but the pacing of the book and the addition of Finn into her life are a lot of fun to read about and I think Amanda Hocking has done a nice job with making it a good story. I started it before heading to a party at a friend's house yesterday and picked it up this afternoon to finish it. I wanted to know what was going to happen. I wanted the story to end well for Wendy.

If you want a quick fun read with likable characters, a fun romance and an introduction to a new world right under our human noses, plop down for an enjoyable read!

In addition, I kind of like the story of Amanda Hocking, who, rejected by the large publishing houses self-published for the e-reader markets and made it a success. It is hard to not cheer for the underdog.

NANO 2011 BEGINS!

2011-10-31T21:32:00.002-05:00

I've been trying to pump myself up for Nano this year. Not going so well. Last year I was swamped with work so I didn't get past 11K. I'm a Cubs fan, so I'll say it... this is my year! We begin at midnight so I have to get my focus into gear and crank this month! Crossing my fingers it will be a good one! Wish me luck.

A Crisp Autumn Day & Frank Lloyd Wright Houses in Oak Park

2011-10-31T21:03:00.002-05:00

On a crisp summer day in the last weekend in October... when else do you want to see the natural, warm colors of the organic architecture of the Frank Lloyd Wright homes in Oak Park? I made my way out to the suburbs this past weekend along with a friend from work. We took the 11:20 tour and found out later that all 23 tours for that day had been booked solid. People couldn't pay to get in anymore. So if you're headed out that way... it pays to have a reservation!

Frank Lloyd Wright built his home & studio (951 Chicago Ave, Oak Park- #1 on the tour) out in the burbs and the family stayed there from 1899 to 1909. Well, techinically he built his home in the burbs while he was working for the famous architect and his mentor, Louis Sullivan and got tired of the commute so he when he opened shop for himself, he added his studio space later. Some of the design elements that his homes are so famous for are evident in their beginnings here. He changed his space around for his growing family and for their convenience to fit into the natural settings of the area... set on a Prarie. He would ride his horse outside and built views of that vista.

I can't say enough about the details of this home and the care with which it has been restored. Anyone in the area would be well-served to take a trip out to the burbs to see it if they have a free weekend day.

These are my cohorts for the day, Ric and Dale... two super nice guys who are both big fans of architectures and this era. It was a great way to tour the area (plus I didn't get lost- which is great for a directionally challenged person!)

From our tour of the home, we decided to take a walk, taking in some of the other FLW homes in the area. The Oak Park Visitors Center has great map of the area detailing where a lot of the homes are. Or you can buy a map in the gift shop as well. The route we took took us first past a home unrelated to FLW, but still interesting for historical significance... the unassuming boyhood home of Ernest Hemmingway. He was born in Oak Park in 1899, the same year that FLW built his home there.

OSCAR B. BACH HOUSE [1911] 611 N Kenilworth

# 16 on the walk: Down the street you get to see one of the houses from 1911. Kind of an unassuming home, but beautiful and easily identified as a FLW home. The windows, different levels and planter in the yard were definite tip-offs as we walked up to it, even without the map.

Next we walked over to the Harry S. Adams house up the street.

HARRY S. ADAMS HOUSE [1913] 710 Augusta Blvd

#17 on the Walk: Again, the oganic levels, beautiful detailing in the door, windows and the signature FLW planters out front all add beauty to this home.

As we walked around we clearly got a good view of some other Prairie School homes that were built around the same time. The Ashley C. Smith House (630 N Euclid)

The excellent home of Edward and Caroline McCready House [1907] on 231 Euclid Ave by architect Spencer & Powers has a lovely doorway and other great design elements that caught our eyes.

Next on the street, we noted the tiny home that apparently is for sale? It is #25 on the walk.

GEORGE W FURBECK HOUSE [1897] 223 N Euclid Street

Next, we made our way down and had a bite to eat at Tasty Dog in downtown Oak Park (you probably will want to walk further as there are a number of nicer cafes and restaurants down the street). Tasty Dog was good diner experience and a lot of fun where we could take a break and sit outside for a bit. Then we made our way down Lake Street to the Unity Temple a bonafide National Historic Landmark.

UNITY TEMPLE [1908] 875 Lake Street

We actually didn't go into the church, just enjoyed the view from the outside- there was a concert going on inside so that will have to be another trip. It is an interesting view from the outside. I liked standard Christian cross on the planter. His family emblem is the cross with the circle and you can see the planters outside his own home had that implant built in. The church's planter was essentially the same thing, but just the cross alone. The building is made of a rough concrete in place of masonry. The design elements still lend an air of sophistication and beauty that might be missing otherwise.

FOR THE WORSHIP OF GOD and THE SERVICE OF MAN

Down block is the US Post Office, not typically something you would think of as a design star, but the building was pretty cool (901 Lake Street). Cool murals bookended the great hall and it turns out it was designed by Charles E White, Jr., a student of FLW. I am curious as to whether the muralist who did the murals in this building are the same who did the murals in FLW's home- particularly those in his bedroom- American Indians robed in Egyptian-style clothing- per the popularity of the Egyptology at the time.

FRANK W THOMAS HOUSE [1901] 210 Forest Avenue

# 10 on the tour (since we sort of did the tour backwards) I was ready to move in as soon as I saw this house. It is on a little hook of a drive off of the main drag of Lake Street and is really just a beautiful, peaceful home. Our guide to the FLW home & studio metioned the discovery access that FLW built into it so you couldn't really tell where the main entrance was at first glance. This concept continues here with the false arched doorway masking the real entrance on the level above.

PETER A BEACHY HOUSE [1906] 238 Forest Ave

#9 on the tour: This house at first glance seemed a little boring compared to the other home, but to just stand and look at it, you once again got some good vibes. The multi level construction, it revised the former gothic cottage that had been its predecessor. There is a little bit of cantilevering going on. The planters here were built right into the wall so the foliage becomes part of the architecture.

Across the street and up the block a bit is another, very different FLW house.

EDWARD R. HILLS [1906] 313 Forest Ave.

# 8 on the walking tour, the Hills-DeCaro house (DeCaros recuonstructed it after a 1976 fire, when it lost some of its original detailing apparently. It is a pretty house regardless.

NATHAN G. MOORE House [1895, 1923] 333 Forest Ave.

#6 on the walking tour: This house was a literal marvel to behold and frankly not my favorite. It was like different styles threw up on each other. I couldn't even see FLW in it at all at first. Reading the history that he designed it based on a specific request for a Tudor style home, that he had to come back and redesign after a fire in 1922. You can still see FLW (if you look really, really hard).

ARTHUR B. HEURTLEY HOUSE [1902] 318 Forest Avenue

#7 on the Walking Tour: This house is absolutely gorgeous in person, the brickwork is amazing and really stands out as a classic FLW. The house has been kept impeccably and even better, kids were outside playing soccer when we were there. People were commenting that if they had kids they wouldn't be kicking balls around those FLW windows. But, I think that misses the point with FLW. He, himself was a father and regularly adapted his own homes to allow for their upbringing. The organic nature of the architecture was meant to lend itself to that lifestyle and I think that seeing a family enjoying the home just made it all the more accessible today as it must have been in the early 1900s. (after the first house we saw on Forest- the 210 Address, this is my second favorite of the houses we saw).

We had to backtrack to Elizabeth Court because we walked right past it with the excitement of seeing the other FLW houses in obvious plain view. Go back. It is a great little street with lots of interesting houses. Of course we were headed to #11 on the walking tour

MRS. THOMAS H GALE HOUSE [1909] 6 Elizabeth Court

I really like the unassuming nature of this house. One of the smaller ones we saw, it still had some of the classic FLW presence, but in a more understated way. I think it is more obvious as you look at a SE view of the house. Planters on the 2nd floor must have been a pain the dupah to maintain.

We were so excited by finding Elizabeth Court and the excellent houses that lined it's street that we skipped #5 on the tour, but cut over and went instead to #12.

FRANCIS J. WOOLEY HOUSE [1893] 1030 Superior Street

A cute little house, obviously in the style of the last three houses we saw... known as his bootleg houses.

We walked around the block and made our way back to Chicago Ave, which is where we had parked in front of the the FLW home & studio. The last of the three houses we saw were the so-called "bootleg houses" which were rogue designs done against the will of his employer Louis Sullivan who forbade FLW to take outside commissions.

WALTER H. GALE HOUSE [1893] 1031 Chicago Ave

#4 on the walking tour: This was my favorite of the 3 bootlegs, a Queen Anne design with some hints of FLW. I think I was drawn mostly to the windows and wood panelling.

THOMAS H. GALE HOUSE [1892] 1027 Chicago Ave.

#3 on the walking tour: Right next door to the other bootleg house, you can definitely tell it is early work.

#2 on the walking tour: Lastly, the first of the pair to the other house, not really as interesting as anything else we had seen up to that point, though a perfectly fine house.

ROBERT P. PARKER HOUSE [1892] 1019 Chicago Ave.

Anyway that was the last of the houses we saw on a perfect October day with some new friends. Hopefully you can make the trek out to Oak Park too!

Summer Trip to Fallingwater

2011-10-31T02:11:00.002-05:00

So this summer, I went and visited Deep Creek Maryland and got to take a quick trip up to Fallingwater, the summer house of the Kaufmann's, of Pittsburgh department store fame. The couple convinced Frank Lloyd Wright to build them the house and it is one of the most famous of his homes. The house was finished in 1937. For more, this article gives a great snapshot of the history.

It is evident from the design that nature is really heart of the design this home, with the cantilevered levels of the house literally coming out of the mountain. Most of what I learned and noticed was explained by our excellent guide. The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy has really done a wonderful job maintaining the home and its staff is educated and competent.

The Kaufmanns' son, Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. had been a pupil of Frank Lloyd Wright's after reading his book, and it was his interest in architecture that led the Kaufmann's to Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright, who would visit a home he designed and move a vase back to where he had originally thought it should be had renowned battles with Mr. Kaufmann who had hired engineers to advise on what seemed like a crazy idea to build the home. They advised steel beams to support the framing and Mr. Wright was not too happy about either their idea or the fact that Kaufmann went behind his back on the design element.

You have to drive through the mountains to get to the house. Alone it is a pretty drive, taking you through the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania and it puts you in the mood to embrace nature as you're enjoying the scenic views the drive offers.

You get to the gate only by having a paid reservation ahead of time and you get there and make your way to the Visitors Center. From there you go with your tour group and take a stroll down and around the mountain to get to the location to where the home is.

Down the path you go until you get to the opening to where the house is built into the mountain. You can hear the waterfall, over which the house is built. You can see the other tours that are making their way through the house ahead of you.

You can see the steps leading down from inside the hatch inside the home down to the river where the Kaufmanns would have been able to head down for a swim in an isolated pool that was built in (that you can't see here) or apparently, Mr. Kaufmann enjoyed fishing at the base of the stairs. Apparently the Kaufmann's really enjoyed entertaining here and the likes of Albert Einstein and Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera were regular visitors. You can still see some of the Rivera paintings smattered around the household, presumably from his visits.

See how Frank Lloyd Wright built the windows into the corners so that they could be swung out allowing the building to effectively have no "corners" in the home. Apparently they had to build screens to keep out the insects but the idea and beauty of the idea is evident. I didn't know anything about Frank Lloyd Wright except that he had worked with Louis Sullivan in Chicago and he was the godfather of the prairie style of homes. I'm really glad I saw my first FLW home in my home state of Pennsylvania. It lets me put the other things he's done into perspective.

A little restoration work was being done while we were here.

They wouldn't let us take pictures inside the home so the rest of the pictures are outside on the way away from the building. The interior still contains lovingly preserved original furnishings from the Kaufmanns from when their son donated the house. So not only was he the impetus behind having the house built but he was truly the one who was able to preserve it by donating it and the surrounding land to the Conservancy.

The vista from outside is actually the spot where the Kaufmanns thought their house would be built, so they could overlook the waterfall... instead the waterfall has become part of the home when Wright built it over the water.

Like Beating the Drum for Your Favorite Book?

2011-01-29T16:24:00.000-06:00

There's a new review site called Book Drum on the web and they're doing a great job convincing people to write super-reviews of books by having a tournament awarding a bit of money to the best reviews.

If you like a book that you want to tout or if you just like to review books, here's your chance!

Yummy Quinoa Salad

2010-08-29T22:16:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite recipes right now is the Curry Lime Biryani salad recipe that my sister sent to me. I make a big bowl for the week and then can nosh off it as a dinner or lunch side all week with a little extra chicken and/or some veggies... or sometimes just alone. Quinoa is great if you haven't tried it and was a popular food for the Incas and has a very high protein content.

Also, you should know that a bitter seed coating called saponin is on the grain- this protects it from being eaten by birds in the fields but it is bitter. If you buy it boxed- Ancient Harvest seems to have a great line, it will be rinsed already but I rinse what I buy from the Whole Foods bulk bins and it is much better. I also love the pasta that you can buy boxed that is made from quinoa- and it is gluten-free.

Curry Salad: Lime Biryani

Recipe from Women's Health Mag and by MAUREEN CALLAHAN, R.D., modified to how I make it

1 c dry quinoa (rinsed after purchase from the Whole Foods bins)
1 1/4 c water
3 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

6 Tbsp Lime Juice (they recommend to juice/zest 2 limes but this is way easier)

curry seasoning (1 tsp of curry powder, 1/8 tsp of ground ginger, and 1/8 tsp of cinnamon)
3/4 tsp sea salt
1 package (10 oz) shredded carrots (I shred my own carrots in the food processor, the bagged shredded IS easy though)
1 c no-salt-added canned chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained
1 1/2 c thinly sliced scallions
1/4 c sliced almonds, toasted- I'll just toss the roasted almonds I but at the supermarket into the food processor before I do the carrots)
1/4 c dried currants or golden raisins
3/8 tsp pepper

1. In a saucepan, combine 3 tablespoons lime juice, quinoa, water, 1 tablespoon olive oil, curry seasoning, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes or until quinoa turns transparent and liquid is absorbed. Cool and place in a large bowl.
2. Add carrots, chickpeas, scallions, almonds, and currants. Toss.
3. In a small bowl, combine remaining 3 tablespoons lime juice, remaining 2 tablespoons oil, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 3/8 teaspoon pepper; whisk until well blended. Pour over quinoa mixture and toss. Divide evenly into four salad bowls.

MIA-Catching Up

2010-08-29T21:59:00.000-05:00

Lots of Books Read, Movies Seen, Shows Attended.... since my last post, and I'm not counting the pics from the Shanghai trip which was just a one time post since my last.

So, I'm gathering all the info I can and will start catching up shortly... mostly for my own edification.

SHANGHAI June 2010 Trip/ Pics

2010-07-11T01:07:00.001-05:00

I posted a couple of days of pictures here, so I thought I'd combine them to make it easier to click back and forth between days. Anyway here's my nice relaxing trip where I got to see/experience a lot of new things and hang out and drink with my amazing friend Angie.She might only occasionally surprise herself, but she continues to surprise me!

(June 14/15) Day 1/2- Travel there and Karaoke with Qin.

(June 16) Day 3- YuYuan Market, Gardens, Pudong

Random Shanghai Observations....

(June 17) Day 4 - World Expo

(June 18) Day 5- French Concession Day

(June 19) Day 6- Cool off/Relax Day- it was our vacation after all!

(June 20) Day 7- Checked out the Bund and head back to the States.

Shanghai (7): The Bund

2010-07-11T00:44:00.000-05:00

June 20, 2010:

The last day we took a walk down the Bund, which houses all these old European-styled banks and hotels from when there area was filled with wharves. I wanted to go before we had to go finish packing and head to the Airport. Apparently, the Bund wasn't always such a pleasant flowered walkway...they recently rebuilt and reopened it, in time for the Expo.

From our hotel we walked over this bridge and toward the Bund, which our room overlooked.

A huge boat was docking in the river.

The Pudong Financial District overlooks the Bund (the old financial district). You can see the People's Heroes Memorial from here too.

Fun translations...

The bull here is designed by the same artist who did the Bull on Wall Street.

There's apparently a story about the lions... HSBC Bank, one is roaring to symbolize protection and one is calm to represent security... these are replicas after the real ones were saved after the war...

Here's the Bund Lighthouse at the Southern end of the Bund. There's a bar/restaurant on top.

The flowers were really nice, and the wall lit up (those discs you see are lights) at night.

Shanghai (6) - Movies, Little Face

2010-07-11T00:43:00.005-05:00

June 18, 2010:

We spent a little bit of time down by the Bund because I had to exchange some money, but because it was SO hot and sticky outside... in the mid-90s and HU-mid!...we finally decided to go see a movie.

We went to the Chinese restaurant in the hotel for lunch before we did anything. Angie had the Hairy Crabs... I'm not kidding... I went with a safe Pad Thai just because it was so nasty outside hot and humid in the high 90s...

Then we cleaned ourselves up and went back out into the open to go see a movie. The movie we ended up seeing was BACK in the French Concession, which was fine with us because we really liked that area...
We ended up seeing this movie called Shanghai that had John Cusack in it and was beautifully filmed.

Before we went in, we ran into a tour group... yes all dressed alike... taking pictures of this building...NO IDEA what it was though.

[My Movie Ticket:]

After the movie we walked around a little bit... nice to see the Shanghai firefighters keeping things in tip top shape...

We stopped and grabbed a beer then at a random restaurant in the middle of a shopping district, down the street from Louis Vitton...

We ended the day by going to this restaurant called Little Face... the owners used to have a very popular place called Face Bar in the French Concession but it closed after a dispute about the rent I believe... they also have places in Beijing, Bangkok and Jakarta. I recommend them if you're ever in any of those places.

Shanghai (5B)- Market and lunch at Thai Restaurant

2010-07-11T00:43:00.004-05:00

June 17, 2010:

Next we headed into the Taikang Lu Market, which you get to after taking an entrance from the street into a spiderweb of back alleys that are now all connected. We never would have found it but we ran into a French woman who taught at a local school and she guided us there. Such a sweet woman... she was going back to France the next day after having lived in Shanghai for 14 years.

Tons of cool little shops... down a lot of little narrow alleyways...

There's a story about this good luck cat which you see everywhere, apparently after a shopkeeper kept shooing away a cat, he finally let it stay and the cat would sun himself in the window. So many people stopped in to see the adorable cat in the window, that his business picked up.

We stopped here at Tai Thai for lunch and the girls walked us down the alley and up 4 flights of stairs to the the top of the building, where it was a pretty open well-lit room. But, I will say I was a little nervous when they started walking us up this rickety old staircase... this corner spot was just window dressing to lure diners in.

Shanghai (5C) - Firefly, Le Semaine Francaise and an unnamed Wine Bar

2010-07-11T00:43:00.002-05:00

June 17, 2010:

So after walking around the French Concession all day, Angie and I decided to go get ourselves a nice massage. If you're ever in a city with one of these spas, go to Firefly. They're the best! I got a one-hour Chinese-style massage vs. the Japanese shiatsu and then spent time getting a mani/pedi. Angie got an hour long foot massage and an hour long massage also... we were very relaxed after a long day walking around in the heat...

I left feeling refreshed but Angie had been released 10 minutes earlier so I figured I'd stroll around and see what there was to see, and eventually I would run into her... so I took a look and two blocks from Firefly was a little street that had been blocked off for "French Week" I looped back and found her and we made our way back to the tents where I had just missed her...

Since I like La Creperie in Chicago so much, it warmed my heart to see one at this festival... though the Shanghai version....

Yup, a table full of Madeleines...

Used to work at CCH with a guy named Dodd... good guy... don't know where he landed... this is the Chinese Fairy Princess version of Dodd apparently...

Of COURSE there was a Monty's steakhouse!

We then decided to go get a glass of wine, what with all the French-yness around. And we stumbled on this place that was having Happy Hour but we ended up getting a Wine Tasting for 158 RMB- 9 different glasses, and let me tell you... this place had long pours. Though, I'll tell you we walked in, there were dark windows and I'm not sure we even ever knew the name of this place.

We watched some World Cup, stayed til it was dark, made a new friend, "Steve" and hung out for quite a while. Then we took off and ended up going to Bistro 30 around the block from our hotel where they were showing the USA game and got pizzas and maybe a little beer.

Oh, and this Restaurant/Hotel was around the corner from our hotel... and they had these poor valets dressed like Scots... restaurant doesn't look too busy. I really wanted to know if he had seen the Skittles commercial.

Shanghai (5A) -French Concession

2010-07-11T00:43:00.000-05:00

June 17, 2010:

Thursday we headed over to the French Concession and did the start of a Tour.

Apparently, in the early 1900s (1800s?) the Europeans moved into Shanghai, took over a part of town and said "THIS IS OURS" and the Shanghai people apparently conceded... there used to be these Concessions for the British, German, etc.The French Concession, or as our hotel concierge calls it, the "Former French Concession" is a cute little neighborhood, artsy, seems to be up and coming sort of a neighborhood.

We started out at the Old Book Shop co-owned by a Dutch(?) photog and his partner, an American ex-pat woman who own it as sort of a book shop meets tea house. Angie and I both bought books from the owner of aerial photographs he took of the city:

You can kind of see that area to the back and to the left.... it is an opening to a fountain...

Across the street, there was a cute little French Bakery.

These tassle things were hanging up everywhere... I still haven't gotten a good explanation of what they are.

Vienna isn't exactly French... but it appears to fit into the feel of the hood...

Kept heading down the smaller tree-lined street, and ended up passing a park that we went in. There were a lot of older people there relaxing and cooling off in the shade. We got the big stare-down when we went in.

Just photographed this angry recycling bin... not sure what he's so mad about

Visions of Sugar Plums... at a corner fruit market....

Very European buildings

Solves a parking problem...

This was an old French Police Station and then a Chinese one, I think it is empty now, but it goes back pretty far and looks like it is huge from the inside.

Random Westernized "Super Diner" in the French Concession.

Check this out....

Seemed to be quite a few jazz/blues clubs around the city

Just more building sites...

Apparently this was a house of an important Chinese Government Official... not sure...

New construction is springing up everywhere...construction workers weren't wearing hard hats though...

I took a few pictures of these little neighborhoods that would reach way back into the block from the street... this was one of the nicer ones we saw.

Right about this time, I was thirsty and I needed a band aid for a blister... we got both beer and a band aid at this little place. A group of geeky teenage kids came in about half-way through their drink but they were definitely more interested in themselves than us, which was a nice change from some of the attention we had gotten at the Expo.

The French influence remains

Again with the laundry hanging outside from apartments everywhere

More fun translations...

Another one of these microcosm neighborhoods...

Shanghai (3D)- Huxinting Teahouse

2010-07-11T00:42:00.004-05:00

June 15, 2010

Huxinting Teahouse

The Huxingting Teahouse is apparently one of the oldest teahouses standing in Shanghai. It really is lovely.... and jam-packed with tourists...

Leave it to Starbucks to capitalize on the cache of an old teahouse in China....

Again with the crooked bridges

Shanghai (4) World Expo

2010-07-11T00:42:00.003-05:00

June 17, 2010

Made our way to the Expo before the Shanghai workers were off for the weekend.

We got to a remote part of the Expo in a taxi and took the Metro in... aside from the security, they checked our bags and wanded us like we were going through an airport... it was a pretty easy process to get there.

Let me first say that my camera ran out of juice partway through, which I was definitely sad about, we made it through to a see a lot of the Exhibits in Sections A (Euro-centric) and C (where more of the Asian Countries were). The buildings were gorgeous... from the outside. The only building we went into was Nepal. The lines were immense... for example on the way in there was an announcement that the wait for the Saudi Arabia building to get inside was 5 hours long. Just one Exhibit.

Let me recommend to you the Expo Site at www.expo.shanghaidaily.com if you're at all interested in seeing what is there... the buildings are amazing and because my camera died I can only show you a portion... Angie had her camera and took more pictures later so I'll post those if I ever get them.

Shanghai Daily explains:
World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, China, is a landmark international gathering showcasing urban innovation and cultural diversity in the 21st century. Held between May 1 and October 31, 2010, it will feature exhibitions from nearly than 200 participating countries and 50 international organizations.

If nothing else, check out the England pavilion which was my favorite building... it was crazy... like a big porcupine...60,000 Acrylic Rods containing 24,000 plant species at the ends of each of the rods. At the end of the Expo, they're gifting the rods to Chinese Schoolchildren.

You'll ask, so I'll point you to the USA Pavilion... which was underwhelming in reality. It was Texas Day so it was weird to see the taller Americans walking around in Cowboy Hats around the Chinese people who were there for sightseeing.

* FINLAND *

This is Finland's Pavillion- looked like a big basket:

You can see people waiting in line here/craziness:

*DENMARK*

The Statue of the Little Mermaid from the Hans Christian Anderson story was moved from the first time to inside the Pavillion from Copenhagen...

*LATVIA*

Apparently 100,000 plastic cards around it moved with the wind... pretty cool.. you can see the people winding their way inside...

*GREECE*

Given the state of the economy in Greece, not surprised that this was a little boring... was supposed to represent a human city or POLIS

*SWEDEN*

I watched one of the videos on Shanghai Daily and they talked about the four elements as being represented by the four parts of the building... more info here...

*ICELAND* & *UKRAINE*

*TURKEY*

From Shanghai Daily: On the exterior of the 2000-square-meter Turkish Pavilion, three-dimensional images represent scenes found engraved on the walls of houses in Catalhoyuk (7400BC-6000BC) in southern Anatolia, which was a cultural centre during the Neolithic period.

So, right around here, we decided we wanted to cool off a little and Angie wanted some coffee so we went inside the cafe on the corner of Turkey and chilled.

Part of the luck of the Irish? They had grass as part of their building, complete with "KEEP OFF THE GRASS" signs...we thought about going in here but it was closed for an event.

*IRELAND*

*GERMANY*

Their theme was "Balancity"... the building looks much cooler from the side...

*FRANCE*

Apparently you can take 3D online tours too...

*The NETHERLANDS*

The theme for this pavillion was "Happy Street" and kind of reminded me of a Dr. Seuss town street...

So this is about where my juice ran out on my camera, we did hop on one of the open golf cart buses and made our way to the Zone A where the Chinese Pavilion was.... that thing is IMMENSE. No other words for it.

Shanghai (3F) - Pudong Financial District

2010-07-11T00:42:00.002-05:00

June 15, 2010

Pudong:

So we got out of the taxi in front of the Oriental Pearl Tower (which looks like a couple of big pearls in the middle of a skyscraper) and headed over to the Jin Mao Tower for drinks upstairs. We then realized that the Financial Tower (that looks, as Angie correctly pointed out, like a Bottle Opener- we referred to it as the "bottle opener building" the whole trip) had drinks too and was bigger and higher. So off we walked through the heat and haze and smog toward the the towers.

In the meantime, there is plenty of development going on in Shanghai and in Pudong particularly.

The View from the Hyatt (92nd Floor):

Shanghai (3E)- Getting Around

2010-07-11T00:42:00.001-05:00

Getting Around:

June 15, 2010

Around the corner from our hotel was a bar that we never did get to check out- it was often closed!

Motorcycles/Bikes: As a side note, Angie warned me of the motorcyles as we headed out. They were truly unbelievable. You can see this guy texting but it doesn't even begin to show you how crazy these cyclists are. When the light turns red, they go. When the cabs are turning, they cut in front of them. They will knock you over all while yelling at you and still talking on their cells.

The indifference to human life (theirs and others and yours) as they whiz around the city is truly astounding. It is a free-for-all out there folks!

The Expo: "Better City. Better Life" The World Fair/ Expo 2010 is going on in Shanghai right now and the city is ON BOARD and drinking the juice. Everywhere you look, from the smallest restaurants where the wait staff wear pins with the Expo's little Blue Mascot- Haibo on it...to the windows of the buildings...to every nook and cranny where a display can show something about the Expo on the streets and corners of Shanghai is covered with the message to get people to the Expo

T
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Nooks and Crannies of the city:

Just pretty things are scattered about the city in apparently random format... but I appreciated them nevertheless...

The Chinese apartments I saw from the outside all seemed to have little decks where people would hang their laundry... hard to see here but there were shirts hanging off of many of them.

Light up the roadways! Felt very Speed Racer...

These are some places/things we saw on our last morning on Fuxing Road off of the Bund:

Some guys playing cards?

The old and the new/ the city seems to be growing so rapidly, you'll see these pretty glass buildings next to older not so attractive ones...

Little bodegas... these were strewn throughout the city, from drinks to Burberry Umbrellas... you could get what you wanted...

Random sticker on the glass of a store... looks like a Chinese Weeble Wobble!

The Sandals and Foot Stockings Trend... was let me say, baffling...it could be the cutest outfit... and then those stockings... or young or old... I'm not sure where the trend came from... I tried to get a full outfit... but we saw it all over, especially when we went to places not as heavily Westernized. The poor ladies looked like their legs were sausages every time I saw them.

Shanghai (3C)- Yu Yuan Garden

2010-07-11T00:41:00.004-05:00

June 15, 2010

YuYuan Garden

So you can see the pictures, basically these gardens were beautiful and you can see the creators turning over in their graves there are so many people trouncing through there.

[Tickets to get into the Gardens:]

But, the attention to detail is amazing and there are so many twists and turns... even with all the people there, you get a sense of the serenity that must have existed. The big thing here is the ROCKERY... these giant rocks they brought in... of course, I kept thinking "SHRUBBERY"... as in "Bring Me a Shrubbery!" from Monty Python.... but anyway... enjoy... oh, the other thing that you'll see lots of are 1) The dragon heads (whose backs top the walls around the garden in an undulating fashion)- the big thing with those is that the 5 claws were snipped down to 4 after it was built so as not to offend the Emporer by signaling more power than him. and then also there are 2) these little creatures on the corners of all the buildings to help ward away fire apparently also 3) check out the roofs... they actually had to mow them in the past.... there is grass up there!

There were gorgeous buildings tucked throughout for contemplation, reading, etc...

The details were amazing... even the finials were carved exquisitely...

For a government protected site... looks like some of the dragons teeth are missing and/or falling out.

Sacred Fish:

The Crooked Bridges were made that way to ward off spirits... who apparently are so dumb in the afterlife that zigzags confuse them.... just designed to be a more peaceful place in general.

Shanghai (3B): Bazaar at Yu Yuan Garden

2010-07-11T00:41:00.003-05:00

June 15, 2010

YuYuan Marketplace

The marketplace outside the YuYuan Gardens is basically a tourist trap with LOTS of bodies and let's face it, a lot of crap.... I used to go to the beach at the same place every year in Emerald Isle, NC (mental note--- go back!) and there were all these beach stores just full of CRAP... so they were dubbed... "The Insane Crap Palace"... this whole area puts the Insane Crap Palace to shame.

Weird to see older styles mixed in with all the new... coexisting in what seems like a parallel universe sometimes.

For example, there are all these cars, buses. motorbikes whizzing around and this lady just steps out in traffic with her jerry-rigged wooden cart on what looks likes wheelchair wheels.

Yup, that's a Dairy QUEEN right in the middle of the mayhem.

Strange to see a Papa John's Pizza place, KFC, McDonalds... interspersed not only in the big tourist areas but also on corners next to little bodegas where they sold knicknacks or snacks.

The whole time you see these buildings that have been up since the 1400s and off in the distance you see the Pearl Tower and just skyscrapers dominating the scene.

Another entrance to the markets. No cars? Really?

As you leave the gardens, you'll see the H&M and KFC in the background... oh yes, and Hagen Daas.

Shanghai (3A)- Shanghaiese Lunch and a Eurogastric Dinner Our First Day

2010-07-11T00:41:00.002-05:00

June 15, 2010:

BAO LUO (lunch)

On our first day, I slept in and then we made our way to lunch having decided to dive right in and picked a place from one of the Tour books we have called Bao Luo (271 Fumin Lu)... the book says that if you blink you'll miss the place and that's completely true... a closed in front hall way in what appears to be a smaller place opens into a huge space with several floors. Apparently it is known for cheap and classic Shanghaiese dishes.

So we get there and decide to walk around a bit because it is going to be a 20 minute wait... we got a number like a deli counter... and 45 minutes later we got in....sort of reminded me of parts of the South... they tell you one time and then you just sort of have to wait and be patient... it will happen eventually.

Translations are always fun.... we're not sure if they were asking for tips or giving friendly advice:

Angie enjoying a Tsingtao beer, (the brewery was founded by German Settlers in China in 1903!) I had a Coke (much more prevalent than Pepsi, though I had that when I could) and a Tsingtao.

Dinner at the House of Blues

I'm just going to skip the day here and tell you about dinner later... so, at the end of the day, we went to a European styled place called Blues and Jazz and had a good dinner and watched some Jazz..

These guys were great, Norwegian older guys playing old standards and talking to the crowd in English... the lead singer sounded like Louie Armstrong. Weird. I talked to one of them during the intermission and told him I was from Chicago and he was really excited about it.

Shanghai (2) Karaoke with Qin

2010-07-11T00:41:00.001-05:00

June 14, 2010

Now Sing Along... the Karaoke night...

We kind of crashed as soon as we got there. We didn't unpack, we didn't do anything... just slept and the alarm went off to go meet Qin, or as she goes by now, Nancy...for KARAOKE!! at 7pm because she had d a reservation there. There is a 13 hour time difference between Chicago and Shanghai and the flight was supposed to be 14 1/2 hours... it kind of messes with your internal clock. Qin was in Angie's Tax LLM program at Northwestern and is just about as smart as they come. I met her a few times when she was still in the States and she was always a great girl.

Anyway, the place Qin sent us to is called Holiday... (what she told us) but was really Hao Le Di KTV (Karaoke TV?) at what I think was the Jiang Ning Road Branch (江宁路店) Address: 4F, No.167 Jinag Ning Road, close to West Bei Jing Road(江宁路167号食博汇4楼,近北京西路). We saw several of these while we were there so we figured out there were branches.

Having just seen the Sex in the City 2 movie, I was a little worried we were going to be put up on a stage and probably mocked, but it was much less painless than that. Essentially, there's a buffet for dinner in a shared area (you can buy tokens to get more expensive parts of the dinner) and then you were escorted into a little room and picked songs from a screen and sang along with the video... The lyrics came up while a video or screenshots came up in the background. You just sang with the people in your little room, that had been reserved in our case, but I'm not sure if everyone has to have a reservation.

Qin has a beautiful voice and Angie and I... well not so much... I know I was terrible, but I was barely keeping my eyes open and really just can't sing. Her favorites were the Carpenters and we convinced her to sing a song in Chinese. So, there you go... and that's one of the reasons you won't see video... it was a blur of a few hours really. I will say the translations weren't great, words changed, were missing, etc. and as Qin graciously said... we don't practice as much as they do... so that's why we weren't good.

As a side note, we Americans thought that some beer might bolster our nerves but we didn't find any until nearly the end of the experience... in which case, and I'm only speaking for myself, the one beer I drank (a Corona) just made me more sleepy.

Angie saying goodbye to Qin as we got in our taxi to go back to the hotel. She had a train to catch the following morning early where she was going to go to Beijing (I think). But she admonished us, if we needed any help, to call her secretary "Jesse" to help us find our way around. And then we sadly parted ways and headed back to our hotel.

Shanghai (1) - Getting To China

2010-07-11T00:41:00.000-05:00

After a taxi came to pick me up and we went and picked up Angie, we got to O'Hare in good time and got on our flight... United Business Class is nice. Though apparently they're making it even nicer... they're converting most of the Business Class seats to first class style but only a small portion of planes have undergone the conversion. The stewards/stewardesses were great! We had a dinner selected by Charlie Trotter even...

We landed at Pudong Airport and took a taxi to the Hyatt on the Bund

Our Hotel-

These are taken from the Juice Bar (my morning breakfast for a few of the days we were there) on the ground floor where the spa and gym were located:

From our room, we had a great view of The Bund and if you pressed up against the glass could kind of see over into the Pudong area (or Financial District). It was a great view at night too. Notice how all the boats were all lit up and sport advertisements. Pretty cool.

Gramps' Pumpkin Pie

2009-11-24T13:41:00.004-06:00

A visit to Grammie and Gramps' house in Kane, PA for the holidays was always accompanied by Gramps' family-famous pumpkin pie. He actually did that part of the cooking, which was one of his very few specialties (along with his daily oatmeal-to put hair on your chest.)

Tip: use pre-made Pillsbury crust flour a little before putting in the pie pan and cover the edges of your crust with tin foil (cut a longer sheet into long thirds), you can remove for last 5 or 10 minutes, it will keep the crust from getting too brown. It will make several pies with a little "pumpkin juice" left over- which everyone in our family fights for.

Pumpkin Pie

Combine:

1 large can of pumpkin
3 eggs beaten lightly
1 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
2 cups scalded milk

Except for the pumpkin can, triple all the ingredients... this third of the recipe works for the smaller can of pumpkin but somehow is never a good as the big batch.

Bake for 40 minutes at 400 degrees.

Cope's Corn P-A Style

2009-11-24T13:30:00.008-06:00

Growing up in Pennsylvania, this dish was always a staple at Thanksgiving and Christmas for us. I've adopted it and kept it going in Chicago, even being able to find Cope's brand corn occasionally. Love this stuff!

TIP? Mom always cooked it in another flat pan full in an inch or two of water to help even the cooking and added crackers on top...

Cope's Corn

Baked Corn Supreme

1 15 oz can Cope’s corn, drain liquid***
1 tbsp sugar
1 cup scalded milk
2 eggs, well beaten
1 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Pepper
1 tbsp Butter
2 tbsp crackers to top

Combine all ingredients. Bake in buttered baking dish for 40 minutes at 400 degrees.

Serves 4 – 6

***Note: Dried corn may be used in this recipe as follows:Grind contents of package (7.5 oz), in a blender or food chopper, add 5 cups cold milk, 3 ½ Tbsp butter or margarine, 2 tsp salt (optional), 3 Tbsp sugar, and 4 well beaten eggs. Mix thoroughly. Bake in buttered 2 qt casserole for 60 mins in 375 degrees F preheated oven.

Sabrina's Sweet Potatoes

2009-11-24T13:12:00.006-06:00

I don't like sweet potatoes and we never had them growing up for holiday dinners but many friends who I was cooking Thanksgiving dinner for would talk about how they loved sweet potatoes as part of their Turkey Day dinner growing up. I just didn't make them. But, when a former co-worker, Sabrina, swore by this recipe... her family, she said, fought over it... I thought I'd give it a try. Not only did I love it but she was right- it was a big hit and now it graces all my holiday tables and is always requested by my friends. Thanks Sabrina!

Sabrina's Sweet Potato Souffle

Blend:

2 cups mashed sweet potatoes (29 oz can or 2 15 oz cans)
3/4 stick of butter
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp Cinnamon

Topping:

1/2 cup flour
1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Blend the first 6 ingredients and and pour into a casserole. (Can prepare the day before and cover leaving it in the fridge). Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes

Crumble the topping ingredients together. After the 20 minutes, remove the casserole from oven and sprinkle topping over top. Return to oven and bake and additional 10 minutes or until set.

Review: A Carina Little Story- Doesn't Blow

2009-10-30T19:15:00.004-05:00

I sort-of liked The Glassblower of Murano. Nora goes to Venice after her husband divorces her for a uglier woman. Her idea is to focus on her glassblowing career, inspired to go not only by a desire to develop her own artistic skill with glass but also by a desire to find a link to family, more precisely to a famous glassblower ancestor of a father she never knew. Not surprisingly she has to overcome some obstacles and finds some romance along the way. A lot of her success comes from her being a pretty blond that inspires men to move mountains to help her.

What did I like? Well, I lived in Italy for a year, love Venice and the clever juxtaposition of the two family members lives being tied together generations apart was done fairly well and the vehicle was good. If you like romances and a little historical fiction, you will enjoy very much. The history of the glassblowers was the most intriguing part, I thought.

What didn't I like? I didn't really like the heroine of the book, and those kinds of books are always hard sells. I never really connected to her and didn't really ever feel bad for her. I think it is just a character development issue for me. Her fish out of water story wasn't from her living in a new place, it was because she gets shunned at the workplace? She spends time telling us about the mother and her relationship with her. Then, for someone so concerned about "family" I didn't see a mention of her calling her mother to tell her about any of her big news, though she didn't have a problem mentioning how our erstwhile detective hero called his friends right away. She's supposed to not be concerned about money after the divorce but then we find out she's relieved she's been paid so she can make one month's rent... no other mention of money in the whole thing.

Do I want to spend a whole book with someone I wouldn't like very much at a dinner party? As far as I could tell, Nora's only redeeming quality was that she was pretty and could decorate an apartment... interesting tidbits, but not a fleshed out person for me to like. Yes, yes, if the writing is good enough, the character development is good, the story is good I don't have to like the character... here, the writing was decent in parts, the story was good in parts. The problem was that just when I was getting ready to keep reading, I kept getting distracted by the break-out italicized thought quotes that were thrown in. The way I read-and I'm a fairly fast reader-made me stop this book a couple times and put it aside to read something else because I would stop and slow down so often in order to read the quote bubbles. If Marina had just told me what they were thinking in the text, I would have been happier. Again, maybe not an issue for everyone.

Enough of this story stuck for me, in the end I would say that especially if historical romance is your deal, then read it. For me, I'm going to wait to see what Fiorata Marina comes out with next... with such smart ideas to anchor the book, I think practice with her writing will only make her better and I'll be willing to give her another chance.

GIDDY As a SCHOOLGIRL Over This One...

2009-08-24T23:22:00.006-05:00

I... AM.... SOOOOO...EXCITED!!! I mean I am jumping up and down, excited!!! Okay, so I posted before about Song of Fire and Ice being done by HBO back in October of 2008. Oh. So. Long. Ago. So, long ago in fact, that I kind of thought it wouldn't happen.

But, fast forward ahead and here I am today... looking at an IMDB page that has some of my FAVORITE actors cast in the roles I so love in the books. First off... can we say JENNIFER EHLE playing Catelyn Stark? She is amazing (I simply adore her as Pride and Prejudice's Eliza Bennet.) Okay, so for one of my favorite characters, she is perfect. I like her enough in that role that I would be excited for that alone.

But now consider that we also have SEAN BEAN!! playing Eddard Stark. Can that be any better? Perhaps you remember him as the bad guy he played in National Treasure or the great Sharpe series (based on the Bernard Cornwell books). Mark Addy, the guy who plays Roland in the guilty-pleasure flick, A Knight's Tale (also with Heath Ledger and Paul Bettany) cements it and that is only three characters. If they're doing this good of a job at casting these roles... the rest of them have to be stellar as well. Just see who they have playing Tyrion Lannister...

I'm officially excited.

Review: A Gentleman's Daughter and the Pentagram of Death

2009-07-13T02:49:00.003-05:00

Pride and Prejudice AND Zombies? Come on! I was so excited! A longstanding Pride and Prejudice/Jane Austen fan, the A&E/BBC television miniseries which featured Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle left me firmly gaga over the story. I got the added benefit of the craze with the Helen Fielding Bridget Jones series- both movies and books parroting P&P (and even talking about Collin Firth's swimming scene) and the Bollywood version-Bride and Prejudice, and I loved them all, except for the Kiera Knightly version, which I thought was okay but why try to remake something so soon after the last one which was perfect in all respects. Though Jennifer Worick does make a good point when she says she wants to punch Mr. Darcy in the face (see her blog post here.) because Darcy ruins all other men for we of the Austen-loving set. How does one measure up? (Unless you're Jamie Fraser, which alas is another literary character and one we won't get into here *sigh*.)

To this book, I say-eh.

Don't get me wrong, it gives me another chance to read Jane Austen. I like zombies. However, I think Seth Grahame-Smith stole some of the non-girliness and integrity that I like about Miss Eliza Bennet. That may sound strange because he does let her be a Chinese-trained zombie killer. She still swoons a little much for my taste. If it weren't for Jane Austen's filched language, I might even pick this as a really good book... but unless you're going to really spin a story with with your own spin... the stolen language left me a feeling a little disappointed and the original is so good that I think this version was a little flat for me.

I still liked it, think it was fun and especially if you're not a big Jane Austen fan, you probably wouldn't know the difference and would really like it.

Read it, it is fun and one can never get enough P&P in my humble opinion.

Review: Terre D'Ange Gets a Fresh Breath of Air

2009-07-13T02:11:00.003-05:00

I happily picked up Jacqueline Carey's Namaah's Kiss after reading the other books in this Kushiel Fantasy series, first with Phedre and then with Imriel's stories, but they are the stuff of legend when we finally get to Moirin's story.

Moirin grows up a little bit of a witch in the woods with her mother and discovers that her father was from Terre D'Ange, so the goods of both her parents are speaking to her and giving her guidance. She ends up controlling her powers working with an Asian guru, who takes her on the adventure of her life. She rises to the challenge and helps in the quest to save the Princess... a nice change from the boys always saving the day.

I really like this series, usually a proponent of the George RR Martin or Robin Hobb books, they are a total guilty pleasure and I'll keep reading them as long as Carey keeps churning them out. She does a nice job in creating worlds and with her characters. Sometimes the characters are a little shallow (I admit) and the story is obvious but it does what it advertises and gives me a good fantasy read with a little bit of happy smut for good measure. Enjoy!

Review: Not For Tai Chi Neophytes

2009-07-13T02:03:00.001-05:00

So, I asked to review this book hoping for some tips on the basic princilples of Tai Chi. As a stressed out professional, I've been thinking it might be a good outlet for me. However, this is written for an advanced Tai Chi practitioner. Even though I think some beginners would have been better served if there had been more photos to show what poses the author was talking about, but I still enjoyed reading it. And if I ever get past the beginner's stage, I'll definitley go back and reread.

I feel like the author's Tai Chi background is only part of the draw of the book. The instructor seems wise, kind and thoughtful in his presentation, which I really appreciate. I would recommend for anyone who is either 1) an advanced user or 2) someone who has gotten a good head start and can take advise from Mr. Chuckrow. A DVD might be a nice value add for this book.

Review: Scary Vampire Struggles

2009-07-13T01:17:00.003-05:00

I write this with a confession, I read the first 20 pages of The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan a few months ago when I received an ARC copy to review. After those pages I stopped off at a local grocer to pick up some dinner and planned to read for hours when I got home. Turns out it fell out of my bag between the store and home and I was devastated. Because I started this book very very excited which caused my imagination to race, I raved about it to friends and told them to expect something really good in June. I thought the book started like a fun Michael Crichton-style of writing. It reads, I told them, like a movie- if you try you can actually see the film as you're reading it. Needless to say, I bought it as soon as it came out.

The hero, a disbelieving scientist, has a romance with a co-worker while struggling to come to terms with his divorce and keep his kid. Meanwhile the 8-foot vamp shows, in a bid to propogate his kind across the US? or maybe just have a big snack. He is a thinking vamp, but it appears the rest of the vamps with the worm-like appendages in their systems are all zombie-vamps... incapable of thought or emotion, just out for brains, um I mean blood.

The scientist works for the CDC and they treat it like the plague... spreading across the islands of NYC. Our hero struggles. He struggles between the ex-wife (and of course her new idiot husband) & the reltationship he is creating with his co-worker hookup. He struggles with alcoholism. He struggles with losing the son that is so much like him. He struggles with being a healing doctor vs. a zombie vampire killer. After just one run-in, he becomes the target of the UberVamp and a couple of the struggles are resolved for him.

The end shows us what the sequel will give us... the Uber-Vamp League of Justice is poised to strike back at the newly arrived blood-sucker for outing them. Hope it is better now that we've met and kind of like the hero... I get the character-building aspect but we hopefully won't have to be introduced to any more of his struggles.

The friends they pick up along the way really make this book for me... the Giles to our hero's Buffy, Setrakian knows and informs and is primed to fight the vamps. The rat-catcher who knows how to eradicate vermin. He's ridiculous and I really like him.Aside from all that, it was a fun story.

I love vamps and their stories (not the lovey-dovey Twillight kind either) and the good definitely outweighs the bad here so I will definitely read the sequel and/or the rest of the trilogy (with hope in my heart that they will surpass this one) and will see the movie. ( )

Review: A Great American Novel

2009-07-13T01:03:00.003-05:00

I read America America by Ethan Canin some time ago and neglected to write a review.

Cory Sifter has the good fortune to have a hard-working blue-collar father who has shown his mettle to the rich Metarey family who owns the town nearby. Luckily his worth and value do not go unnoticed by the patriarch of the family who assumes Mr. Sifter's son will have many of the same qualities and sees first-hand that he is a smart hard-working boy. Set in New York, the small-town newspaper man looks back on his story and the story of those who helped him become the man he is.

When I think of this book, I am mindful of authors all of the country striving to write "The Great American Novel." The idea of a poor boy going to a prep school, making all the right contacts and making his way in the world through wits, hard work, reliability and loyalty (all-American, in a Statue of LIberty, apple pie kind of way) while highlighting the entitlement of the rich and the corruption of politics? I think Ethan Canin has moved a step closer to the ideal than any book I've read in a long time. I do see tinges of Richard Russo and John Knowles, but Canin owns this story and I'll be happy to read anything he writes going forward..

The character development is excellent, the story is solid, and the characters have stuck with me. It goes in the pile of books that I know will be reread. Like John Irving novels, I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who appreciates a well-told story.

One caveat is that I do think there are points where the story is a little slow but despite that, I never lost interest.

2009-06-25T11:35:00.001-05:00

Between my move at the beginning of May, my very very busy month of May and June with respect to my work schedule and my end of June move to Seattle for the summer, I haven't had time to post much lately but many things to add and I hope to catch up over the weekend of the 4th. See ya in Seattle!

Good and Bad Yinzers

2009-04-21T10:39:00.003-05:00

State of Play opened this weekend, and since there isn't too much else out there I went to see it. It was okay, I liked it. I would recommend others see it, but I wouldn't tell someone to rush out to see it. The cast was great in some respects, just okay in others. The storyline was fun, but I kept waiting for Jack Bauer to rush out and shoot someone. Ben Affleck was okay. Rachel McAdams okay. Russell Crowe better. Helen Mirren... always love her, she is great.

As a side note and as someone who grew up in Pennsylvania, I liked that they made the friendship from PA days...Crowe is the "Yinzer" is someone from Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh has this weird vernacular where folks say "yinz" instead of "y'all" or some other form of that like maybe..."yous guys"? So, when you say, "What are yinz up to this weekend"...it is like asking "What are you guys doing this weekend?" Since it is pretty much the only place that they say it in the U.S., a Yinzer is someone from Pittsburgh. Also Crowe calls Ben Afleck's character "Liberty" the whole time, which is a small town outside of Pittsburgh, in Allegheny County. Even better? Crowe has Steelers gear all over the place. I know this is based on a British TV show, so I'd like to figure out where the relationship is from from that show. I wonder if it is comparable.

L-O-S-T, Season 5, Episode 13 ("Some Like it Hoth")

2009-04-20T18:54:00.003-05:00

Doc Jensen's teaser article is here; his review is here; and Totally Lost is here.

_______

I started the discussion on Friday 4/17:

I can't believe we didn't talk about this, this week! What did you guys think? So one of the new guys who landed nabbed Miles earlier. What lies in the shadow of the statue? Doesn't that sound like some bad line from a Chevy Chase movie gone awry?

Signs Meets Some Numbers

2009-04-12T12:05:00.005-05:00

Knowing could have been so much better. My friend Jay says that it is Christian allegory, but I don't see that side of it. I really don't. I think that there is nothing allegorical about it. It is straight-on, a question of faith from what I saw. My brother said it sucked. I was just annoyed by the ending, really but didn't mind most of the rest of the flick. First of all, Ebert gave this four stars and seems to be truly impacted by the roll of the dice vs determinism question. Ebert also gave Signs four stars but seemed to revel more in the idea of the fear being built at that time, along with the anti-payoff, than he did in the issue of faith that the movie brought out for me. To me these are the same movie really with different endings.

To me, Signs is a much better film. While the Aliens come and there are crop circles (let's face it, that part is a little ludicrous), we see how the faith of one man becomes restored based on a prognostication by his dying wife that the former Preacher has to recognize, thereby getting his life back. Here, with Knowing, we have a Minister's son who after his wife dies, thinks that "Shit Happens" and there is no pre-ordained determination of how things happen and comes to believe only through some preprinted numbers on a sheet of paper that indicate to him that God has a very specific plan. Oh yeah, and there are Aliens who just happend to have gotten God's memo and nab some kids to prepopulate another world with Earth's children. We didn't see any pre-existing colonies like we did at the season finale of Battlestar Gallactica though. (I'm just saying.)

So the payoff for Mel Gibson's character is that he gets his mind and his family back and get's to see the world through eyes of faith. The payoff for Cage's character is that his kid survives, he hopes, and then he burns to a crisp. And Ebert says that Signs didn't pay off?

Lastly, I'm not buying that you either A) think that there is determinism or B) think that things are accidental. I lie somewhere in the middle, personally. Just because I might believe in God, doesn't mean I think that fate and plan are tied irrevocably to that belief in God. But, that is another story.

Empathy is Universal

2009-04-12T11:23:00.002-05:00

Tom and I went to see Good Bye Solo this weekend, a film by Ramin Bahrani. Roger Ebert gave it four stars and calls Bahrani the "new Great American director."Red West and Souleymane Sy Savane play the two title characters. I didn't know it at the time but Red West was a longtime Elvis bodyguard, apparently, who fell out of favor when he busted up a drug dealer's visit to The King. I'm just going to talk about what happens in the movie so don't read unless you want to know what happens. If you're planning to see it and don't want any spoilers, don't read on.

The story centers around two unlikely friends. The first is a Winston-Salem taxi driver, nicknamed Solo who is one of those guys who has a million friends (suprisingly to me as it is set in Winston-Salem, from all different cultures) and a bunch of sidelines he dabbles in. Solo picks up character #2, William, a depressed older man who enjoys going to the movies but who we find out in the first scene who wants to go to the mountains, offering to pay $1000 and have the cab drop him off on October 20th, and just leave him there.

The unspoken (throughout the whole movie) suicide plan of a passenger he doesn't know prompts Solo, the Sengalese taxi driver, to try to give William a glimpse of his own life, thereby giving William a sense of hope. He takes him out drinking trying to remind William of comraderie and talks to him of women. He takes William home to his own house to meet his wife and Stepdaughter, Alex, who plays a pivotal role in highlighting the role of parenthood in each man's life. Solo is devoted to his stepdaughter and his unborn baby with his Mexican wife Qiera. Whereas, we find out William has a daughter somewhere who he fell out of contact with and spends his nights going to the movies to see his grandson who sells tickets at the ticketcounter to see, the relationship unknown to the teen.

Much of William's character is deeper than we see-he is a closed book. We don't see what has lead him to this point, we only see the man who has determined his own fate and the anger he feels toward Solo for trying to bring him back to the land of the living by connecting their lives. Solo is an open, and friendly book, finding empathy for the man who wants to end his own life and trying to figure out the reason so he can help fix whatever problem Williams has. At the same time, we see Solo pursuing his own life and dreams... in his search to become a flight attendant, in his relationship with his wife and stepdaughter. In his friendships, with people all around the city from the janitor at the hotel where William stays to the friends of all ethnicities he plays soccer with he is contrasted with William who is seemingly alone and with no one.

Yet at the end of the movie, Solo seems to accept that William is going to do what he wants to do and in friendship decides to be there for him til the end. At the same time, he somehow resolves to not end up like William and insists on his stepdaughter accompanying him to take William to the mountains.

It is a beautifully film, not necessarily cinematically, though each shot has its purpose, but in that it leaves you thinking and caring about the characters...Roger Ebert, in his review, says:

A film like this makes me wonder if we are coming to the end of the facile, snarky indie films. We live in desperate times. We are ready to respond to films that ask that question. How do you live in this world?

But I disagree. I think that everyone has a point of view. Just because your point of view is snarky doesn't mean it is any less relevant and most of the so-called "snarky" films I see often have a deeper underlayer that seek to find a "how do you live in this world?" kind of qustion though often in an agreed-snarky way that make them good. I did like this but walking out, when my friend says "What was the point?" just makes me like it more.

L-O-S-T, Season 5, Episode 12 ("Dead is Dead")

2009-04-09T18:17:00.004-05:00

EW stuff is up: Teaser (here); Review (here); Totally Lost (here).
_____________________

NIEL started us off this week:

John Locke: So how did it go down there?
Ben: It let me live, I have a small favor to ask of you exalted one. Could we stop by my old house, I need a change of pants.

WOW, that was the best episode of the season last night, but it went by so fast. So what happened to the whole "If I take him he will not remember anything" or is it he just will not remember being shot by the crazy Iraqi terrorist in the jungle? And we see Ben shows his soft side, he won't kill Danille, the baby or Penny. But Caesar, yeah he had it coming acting all big and bad and he is the leader, blah blah. The smoke monster and the Anubis the four toed statue, Widmore was banished for sneaking off and having a child off island. And finally Locke is old Locke again and not a sniveling pansy.

Oh yeah, "what lies in the shadow of the statue" ?

Great episode.
_____

KELLY responded with some good tidbits she found on Lostpedia:

....interesting translations of the hieroglyphics
Ben's secret door

Roughly translated, then, they appear to read "to summon protection...".

AND

The boarding pass featured on ajirairways.com has hieroglyphs in semi-transparency in the corners and along the top and bottom which producer Damon Lindelof translated to mean "underworld".

Wheel of Time! Final Trilogy Announced

2009-04-06T08:10:00.003-05:00

So, TOR has announced that the final trilogy is going to be released for the Wheel of Time Series. The first of the final trilogy and the 12th book in the Wheel of Time is called The Gathering Storm and will be released November 3rd, 2009. Amazon has the audio release listed but not the book yet that I can find... I'm sure it will be up there soon.

Brandon Sanderson is doing the final series after the passing of Robert Jordan. He has been working with the family who took notes on Robert Jordan's vision for the finale of the book.

Crossing my fingers that Brandon and a view of the end of the series will breath life into it.

French Class

2009-04-06T01:48:00.005-05:00

So, I saw this movie this morning at Talk Cinema by Olivier Assayas called The Summer Hours or en francais, L'Heure d'Ete, starring Juliette Binoche among others. Apparently, IMDB says that the French Press calls her "La Binoche" affectionately. I've been a fan of hers since The Horseman on the Roof. I liked it. It wasn't great and probably won't win any awards but it was a nice film. Anyway, a family meeting for their mother's 75th birthday are the heirs of a former French painter who had a great impact on all their lives though the 3 kids (including Binoche) barely remember him. When their mother dies, they are tasked to decide what to do with the legacy their mother has maintained of her uncle's art collection. Much of the collection ends at the Musee D'Orsay (which is an amazing museum and if you haven't been in Paris, I just love--built in an old Train Station.)

There are some weird family secrets and some problems that they have but the artistic aristrocracy is closing its doors for practical matters (at least partially for this family)... presumably Binoche's character still uses her artistic side to move in those circles. It is a touching look at the way practical objects affect the past and present for families and a nice honest look at the characters. The eldest brother who sort of is the "boring" one (and economist) who has remained behind in Paris while his sibs have moved on to China and America, is the one who really carries this movie though. His sentimental side balanced with his practical side make him the silent hero in the family even though the art of his great Uncle are what his mother held up as heroic. Also, with the end of the Artistic Aristocracy, there are some subtle (and not-so-subtle) tie-ins to Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. You'd see them if you know the play.

The cinematography was great though, and after the movie, Michael Phillips commented that it was done by Eric Gautier, who also was the director of photography on Into the Wild and it shows. Just a nice movie, a little serious so don't see if you're looking for a romp.

Great Soundtrack, Fun Flick

2009-04-06T01:33:00.005-05:00

Saw Adventureland on Saturday starring Jesse Eisenberg and Kristin Stewart. Fun movie, captures that indecisive angst about what to do when you grow up when you're just finishing college. Do you go to grad school? Do you try to get a job in corporate America? Do you get a crappy job in your hometown and work until the next step starts. Jesse Eisenberg's character, James, just happens to do the in-between thing and gets a "Games" job at the local amusement park, presumably Kennywood but there are Adventurelands all around the country so really could have been anywhere. I really like the character played by Martin Starr, Joel- the Russian literature fan who embraces his geekiness with gusto but is probably the coolest person in the movie. I've liked that kid since he was Bill Haverchuck in Freaks and Geeks as a friend of the little brother.

The soundtrack to this movie was EXCELLENT... Yo La Tengo did the music and did a nice job with it. I'm really looking forward to seeing them at Pitchfork this summer.

As a sidenote, I'm personally partial to Knoebel's Grove... if you're ever caught in Central PA in the summer... it comes highly recommended.

L-O-S-T, Season 5, Episode 11 ("Whatever Happened, Happened")

2009-04-03T19:45:00.002-05:00

There are Doc Jensen's Teaser Article (here), his Review (here) and Totally Lost (here).

_______________________

I started out this week's discussion:

So, what did you y'all think?

I thought it didn't advance us too much, but I liked the episode. I loved the Hurley/Milo Banter. Loved Jack acting like a spoiled brat... in effect taking his ball and leaving the game because he doesn't get to be captain. Loved Sawyer when he was hearing about Clementine.

Kate, who typically annoys the bejesus out of me was good last night. I liked seeing the maternal side... she stopped being selfish and let Aaron go. She took care of Ben even though he was psycho. I like that it is Sawyer's ex who talks sense into her.

Best of all... Richard Alpert taking Ben into the Temple. I can't wait to find out what's in there... Queen of the Damned? (sorry for those of you who haven't read Anne Rice)...

Best comment? From Roger "That guy doesn't ever ask a question he doesn't already know the answer to." (Sawyer goes from dimwit/hot con man to being THE Man)

L-O-S-T, Season 5, Episode 10 ("He's Our You")

2009-03-26T19:12:00.004-05:00

As always, let's start with Doc Jensen's spoilers article (here) and his review (here) and Totally Lost (here).

Frank noted: Did anyone notice the new Dharma symbol that Hurley "The Cook" had? Thought it was a nice touch. (See here.) And the following fun stuff (see here).
__________________________________________
JJ got us started in our discussion this week:

Hey everybody. last night's episode was ok... nothing really special for the most part. until the freaking ending blasted everything in the universe apart ! ! ! ! ! !

now i kind of new Sayid wold make a play to kill Benry at some point once he found out when they were, but i thought the island would not let him be killed. so much for that! (my jaw was on the ground for like five minutes after Sayid pulled the trigger. even though it's Ben, he was still just a kid. unbelievable and shocking to see.) so, is this a massive "course corrections?" i don't see how because for me this changes absolutely everything. the writer's have made it clear that they do not use paradoxes with the time travel writing, but this is like the mother of all paradoxes... Faraday has layed out rules that the Losites can't change the past, but Sayid just did and big time. let's break it down.... if Benry is really dead as a child:

Benry now cannot wipe out Dharma and become leader of the others
Benry will no longer kidnap Alex from Danielle Roussou when she is an infant
Benry will not lead the others to bring certain people to the island, mainly Juliet, but potentially the Losties as well
no abduction of Walt or raids on the tail section
no capture by Danielle
no torture by Sayid
no killing of Ana Lucia and Libby by Michael to free Benry from the hatch
no cages no runway gets built on hydra island for flight 316
no war with the others
no huge manipulation of John Locke and everyone else....
and possibly NO plane crash of 815 at all!!!! why? because with Dharma not wiped out by Ben, then Swan would still be operational with two people, therefore if Desmond still were to shipwreck, then he would never be taken to the hatch and would never be too late in pushing the button when he was off killing Kelvin which causes 815 to crash,

which, in turn would mean the Losties never go to the island anyway, so how could Sayid even be there now to kill Benry? and what's more, Benry couldn't be there for to overthrow Widmore as leader of the others, possibly making Penny an indigenous island hositle (therefore never meeting Desmond and never giving him reason to sail in the race and shipwreck on the island at all!!!) is your head hurting yet? how about this: no murder of John Locke, no murder of Anthony Cooper by Sawyer, no murder of Alex by Keamy to acquire Benry, no freighter, on and on and on....

so, if all that is true, then everything that happened on the show up until now hasn't happened anymore making it all meaningless, or still happens but now by totally different means: DESTINY.

Troy and Lisa and XX and i all watched the show together last night... we had out brains scrambled pretty good over this. but Troy and i talked about it and thought of a few things:

Benry isn't dead at all and everything still happens
Benry is dead, but "course correction" will make everything still happen but through perhaps a WORSE leader then Benry
Benry is dead, but none of it is really happening except in the minds of the Losties as their consciousness flashes through time, like Desmond, but without going back and forth

but then i thought of a couple more things: what if Benry dies so John Locke can become the leader of the others, but much younger so Ben never does? what if John (the supposed "intended leader" of the others) is a worse leader then Benry, and all the afore mentioned incidents still happen, but by HIS hand, generating new memories in all the Losties heads and changing how they relate to each other and their alternate pasts.....what if the title of the next episode is our answer: "Whatever Happened, Happened" and all this talk, indeed is just drivel. that it all will still happen anyway, because Benry will get resurrected, just like Locke was.

this episode, flying in the face of "the rules" and everything the writers have said they hate about time travel has really got me thinking... they wouldn't do this if it were paradoxical.. they must be doing something to either trick us or pose a completely different direction in the show to get us to the end without being able to figure it all out.... i can't wait to hear how evasive and non-helpful they are during the podcast later today. in the season's opener, Pierre Change tells the construction boss building the Orchid when he asks if they are going to go back and kill Hitler not to be absurd. that, "you can't change to past." just like Faraday says later in the same episode. well the "Hitler" of L O S T was just killed as a boy in the past... did his adult self just go "poof" in 2007 and vanish from the make shift infirmary with the 316 survivors? is 316 even there now? i can't figure any of it out now.... they have got me (and us) right where they want us.

Tuck Shop Talk

2009-03-23T00:29:00.005-05:00

Sophie Okonedo absolutely steals the show in Skin. Based on the true story of Sandra Laing, the movie follows a woman whose genetic make-up left both she and her brothers looking black in a white apartheid South Africa though both her Afrikaner parents were white. Her never-bending father, played by Sam Neill, teaches his children to "never give up." So, we see young Sandra grow up with a foot in two worlds, where the whites don't like her because she looks black but her white designation doesn't allow her to be treated as black.

There are threads that run through the whole movie. Her father has a tuck shop, her husband runs one and at the end of the movie we see that she has opened one too off of the side of her home. The battle between her father and mother, her battle with her father, her relationship with her mother all anchor the rest of story.

The movie does a beautiful job of telling a tale of racism and sexism while Sandra is coming of age. She is forced to step outside the bubble her father has created for her and then when she marries, she is forced to step outside that bubble as well in order to stand on her own two feet. This isn't a movie to go to if you are looking for a romp. It brings up a lot of issues that are never resolved and makes you think while your heart is breaking for Sandra's plight.

I read a book in undergrad called, Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane that this movie made me think of. Also a coming of age story in Apartheid-era South Africa, it is an autobiography that tells of the oppression Mark Mathabane faced and triumphed over by maintaining his head and spirit. Sandra Laing had to take that same journey after looking at the world through "white" eyes. So, I can't even imagine the scars it left on her, but somehow she also perseveres.

Go see it... it isn't a "hero" movie, like Hotel Rwanda, that Okonedo also stars in, but it is thought-provoking and touching and it is a smart movie that I definitely enjoyed and can recommend wholeheartedly.

Duplicitious Commercials

2009-03-22T20:48:00.002-05:00

Duplicity suckered me in with the payout of a fun Rom Com meets Spy movie vibe. I admit it, I am a S-U-C-K-E-R for those kinds of films. I like Julia Roberts, I *heart* Clive Owen but the film fell flat for me somewhere about a quarter of the way through and leaving out the Comedy bits and the Romance falling flat in what is hyped as a Rom Com is not a good way to go.

In the classic love/hate relationship Julia plays the spy game for the CIA and Clive comes off asthe British equivalent. Their romance leaves them primed to scheme to steal a big "idea" from competing corporate giants. There is double dealing through the whole movie and the romance, steamy in places and dry in others. Not wanting to give any spoilers, I'll just leave you with this...

I feel duped. There are, granted, moments where both Julia sparkles and Clive sizzles and even places where the spy bits are fun. So, it is decent, but if you wait to see it until it comes out on video, you wouldn't be missing anything.

L-O-S-T, Season 5, Episode 9, ("NAMASTE'')

2009-03-17T08:10:00.005-05:00

Doc Jensen's story from last week (here) & Doc Jensen's Teaser (here). Totally Lost? (here).

Of course, always read his review (here).

_____________________________

This week JJ started us off:

i really liked last night's ep.... each story left off as a cliffhanger (and they had quite a few stories going at once. i loved what they are doing with Radzinsky (he was Kelvin's partner in the Swan who killed himself way back in the season 2 finale - we never saw him, but heard Kelvin tell Desmond what happened to his partner when he asked about button pushing being a two man job) and the Swan being under construction. and i liked the tables being turned on Jack and his leadership. Sawyer laid it down on him.

Niel, you called it on Sun and Ben and Locke not being in the same time as the rest. i wonder why Sun did not flash with the rest of them to '77. i am wondering if that has to do with destiny for each character. and then the state of the barracks in in Sun's time in 2007 is a wreck, with Dharma logos still visible - that's hardly the state there were in at any time in season's 3 and 4 under Ben's control. all signs of Dharma were gone, at least in the barracks (with the exception of food). this clearly shows that the losties have done some timeline changing havoc in the past.... does Ben never see his 15th birthday now or what?

and what in the world happened to Faraday?

big mystery of the night: did you guys see the woman standing in the background behind Sun as Christian Shepard showed her the photo of Kate, Jack, and Hurly as new Dharma recruits in '77?!?!??!?! there was some strange woman back there, and it wasn't Claire!

[NOTE: later from JJ, sledgewed has totally caught it (woman with christian here)]

L-O-S-T, Season 5, Episode 8 ("LaFleur")

2009-03-05T09:29:00.002-06:00

Let's start off the week with Doc Jensen's Teaser and Review Article-not to forget Totally Lost

___________________________

This week, Niel started off our discussion:

Morning Losties,

I didn't think last night's episode was as good as others have been this season so far, but still a pretty good episode. And we are seeing a lot of Egyptian references, Sphinx, Heirglyphics,Ankuh, there are references on lost cubit that the 4 toed statue is that of Anubis and then Horace. They are almost beating us over the head with this stuff ! Couple of things I have this morning, why did Richard need Paul's body? I think Horace and Amy's baby will be Jacob and finally my wife pointed out a possibly mistake on behalf of the writers. Charlotte is listed as being born in 1979, we see what we think is a little Charlotte last night and Sawyer tells Juliet on the dock that is 1974???????

And finally just when life is all peachy for Sawyer, who shows back up??? Worthless Kate, and we all know what happens whenever Kate has a stressful situation...

Oo La La! Nina Garcia is at Marie Claire

2009-03-02T00:33:00.005-06:00

Running in Heels started, and OH... MY...GOSH... Nina Garcia is in the House! You might know Nina from her previous stint as Fashion Editor and Editor-at-Large at Elle magazine. But more likely you know her from PR... speaking of... Project Runway is jumping ship all over the place... Bravo to WE, Nina Garcia? Elle to Fashion Director at Marie Claire. On cue, Ms. Heidi Klum appears at Nina Garcia's welcome party. I did watch the The Fashionista Diaries when it was on SoapNet and I must say that this is a much better show. [I wonder if it would have been taken to another level on TheFD if the doors of Jane hadn't been shuttered?]

Now, we get to see Joanna Coles, Editor-In-Chief at Marie Claire in action during NYC Fashion Week, showing off Nina Garcia, her newest star. Honorable mention in that we get to see all the other people that make the magazine run with such style. The interns are doing what interns do, but trying to be somewhat reality show about it too.

INTERN 1: (my favorite right now) SAMANTHA - from Oshkosh, Wisconsin is the sunny Midwestern girl who is learning fast to be nobody's fool. She started the show off right, assisting Joanna Coles and Nina Garcia in her first task and then helping the PR Girls on the Red Carpet for her second task. She might cry a little much but she's young. She'll get over that.
INTERN 2: (my least favorite) ASHLEY- the girl who looks like Dirty Dancing, Jennifer Grey. She started out by saying she wanted it and would take down the others to get it. She's already screwed up by being late and lazy packing photo shoot items and then spent the whole show complaining how Samantha got the choice jobs, and wasn't worth it and how she was just not up to it. The only one who hadn't screwed up yet, was Samantha. The pointing finger game is really lame Ashley. Plus, not inviting Samantha to the show? Karma is a bitch. Watch out.
INTERN 3: (California girl) TALITA - she's pretty, clearly has good taste but is walking a fine line between bitch and nice girl by playing to both Samantha and Ashley. She also reminds me of that girl that played Cinder from Little Darlings, Krista Errickson. And here we go with a big, HOWEVER... poor Talita, trying to work at Marie Claire and turns in her first writing assignment with spelling errors? Capital offense! (Yes, I crack myself up, and it does a double duty by being a Pride & Prejudice quote in the same breath-which I will use whenever possible, ie not sporadically- yes Clueless, sorry, I can't stop sometimes.) We'll see if she can turn me around but for right now... dumb won't cut it for a magazine gig.

I admit it, I did watch the SoapNet show, The Fashionista Diaries back in '07. Those kids were hysterical, the smallest thing such a huge drama. They did have their big shot by interning at Jane, Seventh House PR and Flirt! Cosmetics and then at CosmoGirl, once Jane closed its doors. But, I will say this... even though it is a very similar show in some ways, in others, the show is much more about the jobs that the interns are doing right now, than the love life of Bridget and Andrew. Serious rolemodels are guiding their way. I'm looking forward to a good RiH season.

Review: Towering World of Tamara Mellon- J.C N'est Pas La

2009-02-28T00:51:00.010-06:00

I love fashion.So you can imagine how happy I was when I was recently sent an Advanced Reading Copy for the book, The Towering World of Jimmy Choo: A Glamorous Story of Power, Profits, and the Pursuit of the Perfect Shoe. I've always been a comfortable dresser, but not matter how unsophisticated MY look might be, I've been a Vogue/Elle/Cosmo reader for years. The Prêt-à-Porter and Unzipped movies, two years in a row in the mid-90s? How could you not be a fan? Unzipped made me fall in love with Isaac Mizrahi. I was glued to my set when the sporadically aired Signé Chanel would make its way into my TiVo queue and I had the opportunity to see the creative process that went in that year's Chanel haute couture collection. (See the beginning of the first episode on YouTube here... it is great!) Now, I have to say that it wasn't only because of the GORGEOUS dresses that Madame Martine as the head seamstress worked on or the braid-maker/farmer Mme Pouzieux were working on for the Chanel collection, though they were truly amazing. It was the whole process of all the work and creativity that went into the shows. Likewise, Project Runway had me at the very start. I loved seeing the competent Kara Saun create her magic for the first season of Project Runway, just seeing Daniel, Uli, Christian... they all swayed me to the beauty and joy of the creative process. But, when they are creative and I like them and then I love the clothes too... that's when I can't get enough.

Back to THE BOOK. Lauren Goldstein Crowe and Sagra Maceira de Rosen show the progress of Jimmy Choo leaving his Penang, Malaysia roots where his father was a shoemaker to end up designing shoes from his own luxury collection. After attending Cordwainers, he sold shoes at a stall after making them from a Kingsland Road, Hackney, Metropolitan Hospital ("Metropolitan") space-where artisans and businesses found a cheap, though perhaps unsavory location to create their wares. The real focus of the story, however, is on the unflappable Tamara (nee Yeardye) Mellon who convinced both Jimmy Choo and her father and his friends to invest in a Jimmy Choo-branded luxury shoe line.

Tamara had seen Jimmy's potential for earning with a line of shoes after his sucess selling one-off pairs both in her role as an assistant to London Vogue Fashion Director, Sarajane Hoare and through her socialite friends she was partying with in London at the time. Her father used his Vidal Sasson connections from his years past to help get Tamara, J.C and Co., set up around the world, but particularly in America. As told, the success of the "perfect shoe" company was built from a recipe of Tamara's contacts, determination, her father's tough-as-nails business sense-which he clearly taught to Tamara, along with the mix of some luck and name recognition with celebrity (not the least of which was Princess Diana early-on with Jimmy Choo and then much later thanks to Sex and the City!)

Goldstein Crowe and Maceira de Rosen's book reads like a very long mix between a fashion and business magazine article to tell how Tamara (together with Choo's niece-Sandra Choi, Robert Bensoussan and others) helped to build the Jimmy Choo empire from the ground up. They extoll how Tamara triumphed through personal loss when she got divorced, through sale and resale of the company up until now. Today she serves in the company's current incantation as the company's President, shareholder and board member.

Signe Chanel showed how the Chanel staff posted a sign that showed whenever Karl Lagerfeld was in the office... it would say K.L n'est pas la or would flip for K.L est la! I would say the most tragic thing about reading this book for me is that J.C n'est pas la. I read the book hoping to find out how a kid brought up the hard way ended up having this great shoe empire, with the help of some visionary businesspeople. However, what I ended up reading about is what appears to be a crush by the authors for Tamara Mellon. At the end of the day, for me, it was Jimmy Choo who was missing from this tale. According to the authors, though he returned to run his own couture shoe business...he was considering shutting down because he was having trouble purchasing the quality shoe-components he needed to stay open.

L-O-S-T, Season 5, Episode 7 (The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham)

2009-02-26T11:33:00.003-06:00

See Doc Jensen's Teaser and Totally Lost-Part 1 for this week.

First off, as always let's start with Doc Jensen's review.

_________________________________

NIEL started us off on the LOST discussion this week:

I think they may have given something away last night, when Widmore gives Locke the papers and John asked who Jeremy Bentham was, Widmore tells him he was a British Philospher, "your parents had a little fun when they named you, so I thought i would to" Perhaps a little slip that he and Ben, Richard all think he is a dolt and is not special.

BBC Poll Books

2009-02-25T07:59:00.003-06:00

There is a FB thing going around with the below instructions saying that BBC says most people have only read six of these. I couldn't find that story and I admit some of these I should have read. Looks like I have a new project!) I highlighted the ones I need to read. But keep reading, the only 100-book list I could find reference to is below that and it is a different list, so I higlighted that too (looks like DIFFERENT project!)

FB Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
2) Tally your total at the bottom.
3) Tag others and pass it on.

Here's the FB list (looks like I have 69 of them- not counting the COMPLETE works of Shakespeare or The Bible, some of them I have on my shelf waiting for me, some I started but never finished and some I'm embarrassed not to have read, but I only counted the ones I HAVE already read):

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible Does reading parts of it in church count?
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare I guess, maybe?
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegge
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot (Actually embarrased I haven't read this.)
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (X)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (yeah, yeah... on my shelf)
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (X)
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (X)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (X)
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving (YAY!)
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert (you mean the Bowie movie doesn't count?)
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare Wouldn't this be included in 14?
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

According to the April 2003 BBC poll, the list is a little bit different and I've read 63 of these:

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher

51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

Review: The Canim Meet Tavi

2009-02-25T00:48:00.004-06:00

I've read the previous four books and now we come to The Princep's Fury, Book 5 in the Codex Alera by Jim Butcher (his site is www.jim-butcher.com). And this one, while it isn't my favorite of the five, certainly moves the story along. We get to see a little bit more about the Canim when Tavi heads there with his troops to their land to satisfy a promise he is honor-bound to uphold. Unfortunately, the dreaded Vord are there already and between the threat of the Canim and the Vord's destruction, he has to act decisively to save his new friends. Meanwhile, back in Alera, his family is having trouble helping King Gaius Sextus- Tavi's grandfather.

As always, Tavi can't do it alone. He needs the help of his girlfriend, and some of his best friends and advisors to get the job done and save what remains of the Canim people.

These books are a great read, a good adventure and I love reading them. I'll have other books that I want to be reading but will always pick up one of this series before others just for the pure entertainment value and escapism of a fun epic fantasy. I suppose if this genre is not your thing then you won't care for it much. Otherwise, great read. Have fun with them. I don't read the Dresden books, though I will say that I was sad when the Television Series, The Dresden Files, was cancelled.

A Beautiful Snapshot

2009-02-25T00:28:00.006-06:00

Talk Cinema presented us with Maria Larsson's Everlasting Memories and introduced us to Maria's life and family. Maria herself is played by the subtle and charming Maria Heiskanen. Then, there is her larger-than-life husband Sigfrid/Siggie played by the excellent Mikael Persbrandt. Finally, the story is told through the eyes of their daughter Maja who propels the movie with her views of the world, bounced off of her parents and their relationship. Maya is played by (I don't have umlaut's handy) Callin Ohrvall.

This is a beautiful movie. Maria Larsson is a good, no-nonsense woman who sees the world a little bit differently, and even more so when she holds a camera in her hands. Her everlasting memories are captured both in our hearts and minds through her lens. I love the idea about a film being about the beauty of life as shown through film and the fulfillment that viewing the world in that way can be. Siggie may be a blustering hound, and Maria might be a little too uptight but it works for this movie and it works for them.

Like Revolutionary Road from earlier this year, I can enthusiatically recommend this one.

You Speak Prada?

2009-02-25T00:22:00.002-06:00

I saw another Rom Com-Confessions of a Shopaholic- with the queen of Rom Coms amongst my friends, Liz. But she was busy texting the whole time... I think she must have seen it before. Otherwise, she's always into this type of movie.

There were parts of it that I loved including Isla Fisher and Gilmour Girls' Krysten Ritter. They were great and there were some good quotes. She has a Devil Wears Prada moment at the end, where everything snaps into focus for her about what matters (as hopefully does happen in a good story when a fashionista is dictating the moral center) and she makes things right.

Just a fun movie, fun chick flick. I thought it was better than He's Just Not That Into You, if that is any indication? :-)

Great Zus!

2009-02-25T00:09:00.003-06:00

Based on a true story, yummy Daniel Craig stars in Defiance. Though I will say that I like Liev Shreiber as the Zus of the movie just as much. The two Bielski brothers, along with Jamie Bell (of Billy Elliot and more recently, Jumper fame) live in the forest of Belaruswith a small townful of Jews, including scholars, working men, women and children who were escaping the Nazis. As one would expect, the Nazis are after the Jews, and enemy of my enemy is my friend? The Bielskis teamed up with the Russians who were there fighting the Nazis.

There are parts that are touching. I liked it. I just wasn't really ready to see this style of movie on the night that I saw it. I have no problem recommending it though.

Malkovich as Mentalist

2009-02-24T23:57:00.003-06:00

Talk Cinema's 2nd Spring 2009 movie this year was The Great Buck Howard, which starred Colin Hanks (yes Tom's son) as the law school drop out assistant to the Amazing Kreskin-inspired characther Buck Howard, as played by John Malkovich. Hanks is lead astray by the PR girl, Emily Blunt as the romantic interest.

It wasn't a bad movie per say, the acting was okay though I heard more than a few comments about Colin Hank's dad paying for his jobs (he did produce). But I will say that I left it only wanting to know more about Kreskin (his wiki page is here). They used the Kreskin handshake, trick of finding money and apparent sexual ambiguity as fodder for Buck Howard. Not very original.

That's all I've got. Steve Zahn is ridiculous, as always. If nothing else is on, watch it on Starz in two years.

Just Not That Into It

2009-02-24T23:50:00.003-06:00

I saw He's Just Not That Into You with the ladies. Um. Well, it has a good cast, the acting is decent. I really like that Ginnifer Goodwin ever since Mona Lisa Smile. The idea of the story is good. I haven't read the book (shocker! I know!) but I think that it was just a little much and too all over the place for me. I wanted one or two stories, not 8. It didn't delve into great moments for me enough like something similar like Love Actually did.

I'd say this one is on the level of 27 Dresses. Cute, okay, some nice moments. Not great.