Review Catch Up: Three books, real quick

I'm so behind on my book reviews, readers, that I though I'd make it less daunting for myself and catch up on all of em at once.

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. The classic novel of mothers and daughters across the years and cultural divides. This wasn't the most traditional read, as I picked up the hardback over 3 or 4 sittings at my parents' house. Still, how to not enjoy this book? Splendid imagery of modern day California and China a half-century ago, intense mother-daughter relationships, secrets and rivalries and inter-generational conflict, and an author who can easily assume eight different voices and not lose us. I can see why this book changed modern literature and emboldened women writers and introduced themes to a contemporary audience that other writers chronicling the immigrant experience have returned to again and again.


Morality for Beautiful girls by Alexander McCall Smith. More No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency hi-jinx. In this installment, Mm. Makutsi investigates a crooked beauty contest, while Mma. Ramatsowe goes undercover in a politicians' family to find out who's been poisoning whom. Meanwhile J. B Maketoni, her fiance, is suffering from a strange disease called "depression" and the ladies have to take the fate of Speedy Motors in hand. Funny, wise, caring, typically gentle, no more and no less than I'd expect from Smith at this point.



The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I got turned onto this by a combination of the lovely Catherine and Barnes and Noble's noteworthy paperback table. It's a "grown-up" book by noted children's author Burnett who wrote faves like The Secret Garden and family fave A Little Princess. It's kind of a grown-up fairy tale about a good-natured, not particularly bright woman who is a very poor genteel sort, living in boarding rooms and getting paid by rich ladies to do social errands. A fairy-tale romance results in her being 'made" a marchioness, but then in the second half scheming jealous relatives threaten her newfound happiness. It was silly at times, and not all that profound, but written with a very light touch and a great sense of humor and character. The milieu was like Edith Wharton, but less cutting. A good palate-cleansing read and a very interesting novel for the light it sheds on Burnett's life and letters.

What I've Been Consuming

Pamela--18th century lass shows spunk in defense of her chastity, inspires both Austen and Bronte. Oh yes, I made it through this ancient-seeming, yet lively, behemoth of Christian values and a weird proto-feminism, and you shall have my full report on it forthwith.

"In Treatment"--Loved this season on HBO, though it was intense. Paul was on his game as a therapist, but he kept crossin' those boundaries and he had to pay the price to a certain extent. The acting, writing, plotting was top-notch as always, and I left with a little more hope than I had at the end of season 1. Hope there's a 3rd season.

Star Trek- I've never been a megafan of the show, though I've always enjoyed it, but as everyone says, the movie was lots of fun. The first action movie I've seen in ages that didn't try to be "dark" and meaningful, but to entertain with a dose of thought-provocation. Word.

Concerts: In the past few weeks I've seen Bruce Springsteen, Unwigged and Unplugged (the dudes from "Spinal Tap" and "A Mighty Wind"), and Grizzly Bear. One rocked insanely hard, (of course) one elicited chuckles and claps, one soothed and stirred... all were awesome.

Pro-choice insanity: between the Obama Notre Dame speech, Sotomayor, and the tragic assasination of Dr. Tiller, I've been reading and writing a TON about women's stuff. You can check it out on my google reader feed, or my freelance writer feed.

What culture have you been consuming, O readers fair?

Cultural Consumption: Twitter-Style

I'm enjoying the whole tweet medium tremendously. So I thought, given that awards season is upon us, I'd do some movie and TV series reviews with a shortened, twitter-inspired aesthetic in mind and catch you up on what I've been consuming.

Movies.

Milk is by far my favorite of the bunch. Why is the most brilliantly acted, well-filmed, and politically relevant film of the season being ignored by award-giving bodies? ding ding ding! Because Hollywood is homophobic.

Slumdog Millionaire's Dickensian opening sequences are great, but then this beautifully shot movie devolves into weird cliched gangster flick. Not sure I get all the hype, but I enjoyed it enough.

Frost/Nixon was the perfect "fun-serious" film. The two leads were great and Ron Howard's big time Hollywood-style direction fit the content like a glove.

Revolutionary Road--Leo and Kate transcended a stylized script and delivered bang-up performances, particularly Leo actually. But it's a painful subject. Very painful.

Rachel Getting Married and The Wrestler and Last Chance Harvey I wantz to see them.

Television Shows

Mad Men finished season 1, starting season 2. Still one of the best shows around, but why oh why does Don not hang on to poor Rachel Menken? She is the most badass female Jewish character eva.

Rome Season 2 Super, super, super violent but delicious. I have this weird feeling a lot of these characters are not going to make it ;)

Friday Night Lights season 3. The best show on television finished its third (last?) season with a heartbreaking, uplifting, and sadly realistic bunch of episodes. I think this may have been one of the best seasons of TV ever. Tv gods, PLEASE BRING IT BACK FOR A FOURTH SEASON. PLEASE. PLEASE.

What have you been consuming, readers?

I like the teevee

I've been meaning to write a "cultural consumption" post full of inelegant reviews to catch you/my up on everything I've been consuming since the 'oliday season came upon us... but the only thing I've really been doing is watching (excellent) TV. My reading of Little Dorrit has been suspended by a book review I had to do, and my vow to see a lot of movies is on hold til the vacation--which incidentally, couldn't come sooner.

So I've been watching True Blood (the whole first season) Friday Night Lights (the new season that's airing on directv now and will be on NBC soon) and Mad Men (starting season 1). They are all so so so excellent.

FNL is definitely my favorite because the characters--a bunch of Texas teens-- have become so beloved in my life. The show makes me cry and laugh in every single episode and this season it's gone back to being about the dramas of everyday life. It's lost all the desire to be soapy, and managed to stay gut-wrenching because life is gut wrenching. I can't recommend the show enough.

True Blood is stylized and gory. Very gory. But it's a lot of fun once you get past episode 4. The heroine is way more empowered than Twilight's, but the appeal is the same. Dark, undead hero who falls for our heroine because he sees her oddity as a special gift. Heroine torn between desire for hero and fear of his powers. Second love interest who is "safer" + also supernatural but less sexy. Think of it as Twilight for the non-mormon, non pre-teen set. Aside from the primary romance, the supporting characters are interesting and three-dimensional and very profane :).

Mad Men, the 50s ad-world drama, is really mesmerizing. The characters and scenes are totally stuck in my head after only three episodes of tense meetings, endless cigarettes, bed-hopping and the kind of sexual harassment that used to be called "banter." I can't wait to catch up on more. I have a theory about Don Draper being like a beautiful woman in a classic adultery novel (a.k.a a male Emma, Anna, or Hester, but I have to chew on it for a bit.) Also, I can't believe my parents grew up in that era! It really explains the 60s.

I really think TV has eclipsed movies these days in terms of the number of really really high-quality offerings. Thanks, David Chase!

[That being said, the Twilight movie was awesome. Campier than the book, a less zombie-ish heroine, a romance that didn't feel quite as disturbing and wrong. ]

Testing a fun new gadget...

This is how I procrastinate from writing an extremely vital pair of articles that are due on Tuesday.

Thursday Link-O-Rama, I'm Going to Europe Even Though I Can Ill Aford It (because this country f*cking sucks) edition

I've been absent from these here internets because I've been busy banging my head against the wall watching The Reverand Wright Scandal on TV our "liberal" media use racist bullshit to derail a candidate who actually had a chance of changing this country for the better, for the third time in MY measly little LIFETIME (not the racism, but the derailing).

Also I've been online doing all kinds of crazy airline research, still ended up spending way too much money on tickets for me and my boo to go to Europe. But at least we won't be here!

Today's Links, sponsored by GOD DAMN AMERICA.

• The BF interviews rapper Common about the Wright controversy.

• [Greenlight] takes on pot-arrests in NYC and offers helpful advice.

• Me vs. Tina Fey, Round 2 (a review of the atrocious "Baby Mama").

Thursday Link-O-Rama, Spring! edition

Hi readers. It's finally really spring weather in New york. Having spent the morning (or ten minutes of it) blister-proofing my feet with baby powder, blister-band aids, and blister-block stick, I'm about to up and exit this hot apartment in search of the intoxicating combo of sunshine and cherry blossoms.

Here is some mandatory reading:

Over at racialicious, an excellent post about the way ethnic cover girls are whitewashed in the magazine industry, part of the evils of photoshopping which I've talked about before.
Shakespeare's Sister (those Woolf references are everywhere) has documented it far more thoroughly aussi.

Austenblog has a hopping discussion about moments in the Austen ouvre when characters act better or worse than we expect them to--part of JA's genius at describing humanity, imo.

If you, like, me, have a sick , must-know-more obsession with the FLDS church (the fundamentalist polygamist sect that just got raided), read this. Trigger warning; it's about inbreeding and genetic deficiencies.

My piece today at RH Reality Check on the way rape scenes are portrayed onscreen. Trigger warning II: it describes rape scenes.

In case you haven't noticed the blog has gotten a bit of a re-vamping thanks to my finally moving everything to the new blogger layout model. That means when you click on a label and there are too many posts to fit on the screen, you can click on "older posts" at the bottom of the page and actually see all the book reviews or posts on Austen or whatever, which is pretty nice. Also there's a new "sharethis" button at the bottom of every post, so if you dig me, you can digg me, ya dig?
Word.

And with that, je dis: "bon apres-midi! a plus tard!"

Monday Morning Link Farming

How was your weekend, readers? Mine was very busy indeed. On Saturday, I spent time in lovely Columbia Country NY with my familie francaise--they're not actually family, but close friends for three generations--swimming and eating and best of all, drinking wine at lunch (Macon vin blanc, mmm). Sunday I treked out to the Rock the Bells hip-hop festival, which was a downer because of the abundance of pouring rain and the crowd which was more "Heineken and puke" than "peace and love." Who would have thought that Rage Against the Machine, with all their glorious anarchist-socialism, would attract so many goddamn frat boys?

Anyhooch, the soggy day was redeemed with a viewing of the Simpsons movie which was appropriately hilarious and even a wee bit political, and so now here I am, facing another Monday morning of being a motivational challenged 20-something slacker in hot, humid NYC.

Here goes my procrastination rundown:

• The Times, triumphant in its power to obtain various reading material, reads Hillary's angsty college letters and concludes little. Just like they did with HP 7.

• My man John Edwards rails against big media and the haircut scandal. Amen. (TPM/youtube)

• Caryn James has a typically un-insightful piece on Austen-mania. And concludes, stupidly, as everyone does, that Austen is escapism for women. Not exactly, Caryn, but we shall deal with that later.
  

• Over at HuffPo, another Egalitarian Bookworm takes JKR's side against snooty Byatt and Bloom.

• At Hullaballoo, a really really great explique of Giuliani's horrible legacy of racist mayoring in NYC--a legacy which makes me so mad I have a hard time explaining it to people who weren't New Yorkers during the "glorious Giuliani year." Blech.

Women's Mags I'm Going to Read on the Plane

If there's a summer reading book for every woman, there's at least three magazines (actually, I like to think of myself as a category-hopper in both media)
Here are my newsstand picks, from empowering to psuedo-empowering...

And incidentally, I wrote for the new Bitch. Yay.

Oprah and Cormac: Love on the Edge

The reigning queen of daytime TV, Oprah, talks literature with the reigning king of grumpy male novelists, Cormac McCarthy.

My thoughts on The Road here.

Link-O-Rama

Since I've spent the morning "working" on the 6 billion freelance pieces I need to finish before I go to Scotland on Saturday (actually browsing Sopranos post-mortems and fiddling with my website) I have no time for a real post today... but here are some links farmed for your Egalitarian Bookworm persual pleasure.


Salon gets all condescendingly egalitarian and lists a buncha good summer reads. I've been wanting to snag the first one about Shakespeare for a while. But why must fun reads get consigned to the summer? I like a good thriller on a cold winter's night just as well, and enjoy tackling 19th century colossi on the beach.

Jeremy Sisto of Kidnapped and Waitress fame (aka the best psychopath ever) will be joining L&O and hopefully pump some life back into the franchise. Holla!
But who's the brilliant pop-blogger who chronicles this exciting development?

The amazingly wonderful ladies at the Hathor Legacy discuss Maid Marian on the new BBC Robin Hood. Olivia de Haviland was my favorite film Marian, but I haven't seen this awesome series yet so I can't say if she gets a run for her money.
Also, Marian is a very special character to me because a) she's kick-ass b) she cross-dresses in most versions of the legend and c) it's my bloody middle name.

Enjoy your rainy Mondays, readers o' mine. A plus tard.

Stephen Colbert Engages in Literary Spats

Tee-hee.

The Killers are Killin' Me

This video (and song) have been haunting me since I first saw it on JetBlue a month ago...I realize it's neither rife with literary allusion nor even a current indie darling (ahh, the fickleness of "alternative" tastemakers), but seriously, all the more reason to trumpet in on EBC.
I am obsessed with the bizarre filming of the video, and the refrain is so sweet and catchy. So Brandon Flowers, this one's for you. Fellow-ette hearts ya.

HBO premiere night...

Ari Gold on Edith Wharton:

Do you know Edith Wharton? It’s always the same movie; guy can’t fuck the girl for five years ’cause those were the times.

American Idolatry

I got home from a tasty Mexican dinner in midtown with my boo, leaving him to fun at the Bowery Ballroom while I work the "late shift" at a website-in-development I'm working at. In order to troll for a bit of color for said website, I searched for the American Idol results. But they weren't there yet? I then realized that there were only five minutes left to the broadcast and I could see them real time. Simon called it; "curly" got the boot. I think Chris Sligh was totally shocked. Oh, well, he went to sexist-racist Bob Jones U, so I'm not crying a river, 'zactly.

So readers dear, I've been shamefully negelctful of ye of late. This week was supposed to be my "blog'n'jog" week because a lot of my tutees are out of town, but I've ended up with so much freelance work that it's been work'n'stress week instead. Sadness.

However, my favorite and only brother is back from Scotland to look at law schools (he got into, like, all of them) and celebrate Freedom! on Passover, so that's been a ray of sunshine, as has been the weather. Spring really has a huge psychological effect on a persion, doesn't it? I find that I don't need as much sleep or food just because of the change in light, and I feel embarassingly optimistic. We really are just creatures crawling about, affected by the earth's changes, methinks at times.

As for literaryish stuff, we finished watching the hysterical, manic Tom Jones, and adored it, and I've been reading a couple of interesting galleys for my various reviewing/interviewing gigs but nothing myself. I may read the Road now that Oprah's picked it.

I'm also thinking of bringing Daniel Deronda on my family ski trip next week but it's daunting. I used to love George Eliot more than any other author, but recently I've found her underlying seriousness sort of a drain. Still, I ought to give it a chance, particularly since it's totally pro-Jew, which is awesome.

Oh and Also, one of my three or four fave mags and the only Conde Nast mag I read (except for occasional dips into the talk of the town) Jane, got a "serious" makeover. I liked in in theory, but there were so many little bubbles saying "buy this product to be happy" that I was sort of disheartened. Still, if they're really de-bimbofying the magazine, I'm all for it, because I'm rather enamored of its snarky "yo go girl" tone and over-use of puns.

WHY WHY OH WHY DOES STUDIO SHITTY SUCK SO MUCH

I want to like "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip."
I really do.
But I'm currently suffering through an episode involving all the following:

1-someone LYING about why he's standing someone else up for a date (yeah, that's going to work out well, can anyone say EVERY episode of every sitcom ever?)

2-Snakes on the loose.

3-An awkward would-be couple being trapped on a rooftop.

4-A date auction gone bad.

COULD THIS BE ANY WORSE?

yes, it could. It ended with a "to be continued." Shoot me now, Sorkin.

Coldern' a witches teat

Yes, after my previous rant about global warming (I still believe it folks, the end is nigh) mama natura returned with a vengeance... but whatever, freezing one's ass off in a seasonably normal fashion is oh-so-very preferable to schvitzing uncomfortablye whilst imagining the slow melting and breakage of arctic ice caps... or the endless migration of polar bears searching for some solid ice upon which to rest. (Tear, sob)

We-ell, there's nothing better to do when the cold comes in than engage in serious, literary-heroine worthy girlishness. These activities include:

Getting my hair cut. At long, last, I've found the ONE. A cheap, friendly, person who actually gave me bangs that weren't a pathetic-ass wisp, and did a great job on my difficult-to-tame bob. Quoth she: "you got a lotta hair, girl!"
Anyway, all my female readers, and perhaps a few of the male ones as well, will undoubtedly understand that finding a hair person one likes (the first time I've done so in years) is like making a shidduch-- no Yente required.

Ice-Skating I celebrated a dear old friend's 25th by whizzing around wollman rink (or should I say TRUMP's Wollman rink, hard to do without throwing up a little) like dem Victorians used to do it-- although I don't think those in that elegant era used to listen to booming clubby house music while they did it. Anyway, I love skating for all the aesthetic reasons, such as snow-scapes, but also because it's one of a very few sports I am more than adequate at. To be fair, they're actually all pretty much variations on the same sport, which is to say standing on slidy things without falling: skiing (both downhill and XC), ice-skating, and rollerblading. Sometimes I can even whizz by people who have Y chromosomes, which gives me a super-cool rush. But mostly I just like the feeling of gliding. Who doesn't?

Ben and Jerry's Eating- Why do women like ice cream with chunks and swirls in it, when most men I know prefer it pure and unadulterated? Sad as it is to admit, I'd rather have some junky artificial frozen yogurt with ten different flavors and chunks in it than some vanilla, no matter how vanilla-y and amazing it is. Why is that? Why do we crave the chunks? Does it speak to boredom, emptiness, hormones, or what? Somebody enlighten me. RIP Ooey Gooey cake, the best fr0-yo flavor ever, sponsor of my freshman fifteen.

Election Watching--Yes, I'm pissed that Hil's triangulating, at the press is already Dean-ifying Obama by hyping him up to ridiculous degrees and then casting doubt on his electability, but I'm still fucking excited. A woman, a minority, and a hard-core economic populist (Edwards), and Kucinich to boot, versus an imploding group of blowhard old white men. This is going to be a great, thrilling race, enough to get a disillusioned Gore and Kerry door-knocker sending in her resume to some campaigns. And that's sayin' something.
Blue '08. Awww yeah.

Ring in the New...

Happy 2007 to all... Fellow-ette has been enjoying a noisy and very long break... and she's actually exhausted, because despite a bevy of noon wake-ups followed by stumbles to Angela's coffee shop up on 187th for $4 french toast, juggling family, friends, family-of-friends, and friends of family during the joyous holiday season ain't as easy as it looks. Still, it's been worth it entirely to lollygag, shop post X-mas sales, gorge oneself on cookies and takeout and good conversation, and most imporantly, see the people you love!

And there's been time for a strong dose of that sweet medicine of pop culture immersion. In no particular order, here be my thoughts on:

The Queen-- I just loved this film, which was an extraordinarily gentle and unflinching look at the events following Diana's death. Sympathies were spread to everyone from the throngs who mourned to the somewhat lugubrious Tony Blair, to Helen Mirren's perfect-to-a-point Queen. I've never seen a movie that treated something so recent so interestingly and compellingly.

"Beauty and the Geek", season premiere-- I love B and the G because of the ridiculous "message" it imparts about learning to love people who are different than you. I love the bonding that takes place between the beauties and geeks and the personal growth they actually go through. Although I must admit it's a bit misogynist to ALWAYS have the beauties be female and the geeks male (come on Ashton, shock us) it's still a treat. Oh, and as a graduate of the school to which two of the current geeks matriculate or matriculated, going to Harvard doesn't de facto make you a geek. A loser, perhaps, but not a geek. I think Nate and Scooter have an unfair advantage.

Ciaran Hinds-fest:
I've been getting my fill of the wonderful Captain Wentworth strutting his cinematic stuff this week.

*First there's been a "Rome" marathon, with 9 of the first season's twelve episodes covered since vacation began. What can I say about this show: it's scandalously good just like I, Claudius but with more sex, violence, and coverage of the plebs. Plus lesbianism, incest, and disemboweling galore. In other words, something for everyone. The only hard part is knowing that each epsidoe brings dear Ciaran-as-Caesar closer to the Ides of March.

* Jane Eyre as done by the BBC with Hinds as Rochester and Samantha Morton as Plain Jane herself is the first screen adaptation of Bronte's novel I've actually ever viewed, having heard that none of them entirely do justice to the complexity of the book. This is true, but while the script of this movie shortchanges the unique pacing of the book and plays down Jane's bizarre morality and growth, the acting from the two leads is so fantastic and their chemistry so intense it's breathtaking. Ciaran's wild, passionate Rochester is a far cry from the calculating Caesar or the bitter, reserved Wentworth.

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. About halfway through this novel of immigration and change in a small, politically trubulent corner of india near several borders (Nepal, Pakistan) and a simultaneous chronicle of the Indian experience abroad. This Booker-prize wining novel proves beyond a doubt that the brits are really overfond of over-writing. I prefer simpler prose for sure, but then, I'm an egalitarian bookworm chick, so what to expect?

Peace and love, dear readers, and welcome to '07.

I Actually Pity Lindsay Lohan

After a hard, tough few days watching oodles and oodles of year-end recap shows, I have this to add to my thoughts on the scandals and successes of '06:

<---girl, you ROCK that Kabbalah bracelet!


Cogent point number 1) Leave Lindsay Alone:
Sure, she's a wardrobe malfunctioning, nearly illiterate, somewhat vulgar human being, but can you blame her? Look at her insane, battling parents and the way they pushed her from like the age of two months onward. As someone wise once said, she's the Michael Jackson of her time. What really pushed me over the edge, though, from Lindsey-haterdom to a more neutrally disgusted position, was watching several year-end recap shows show footage of Lindsey shopping...and then seeing the pan-out to the literally fifty cameras that were following her as she did so. I just found that to be a most pathetic sight. I mean, I would go nuts too if they were following me as I tried on my [insert designer name here because I don't know who's hip] outfits.

Oh, but if you get any good Lohan-gossip, send it my way.

Cogent point number 2) I want to amend what I said a while back about my favorite music of '06. It's not that pop beat out every other genre, it's that pop was so soundly influenced by other genres..."Hips Don't Lie", "My Love", and "Promiscuous" not to mention all of Fergie's stuff, were essentially hip-hop songs with some techno, dance and reggaeton influences thrown in to a to make them extra spicy. And, umm, singers with white or white-ish skin (cough, cough, Elvis). So it's not that Hip Hop is Dead, as Nas proclaims, but rather that the mainstream has embraced it. Which may mean it's dead. Fuck if I know. Next point.

Cogent Point Number 3) As for Indie Music, I absomalutely loved Franz-Ferdinand's "Take Me Out" and Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Gold Lion" for my mainstream-Williamsburgy not-really indie are they? fix, and appreciated the straight-up melodic rock with a strong beat that both songs embraced. I mean, if you can listen to a song at the gym, how alternative is it, really? But seriously, how much more valuable a contribution to society are you making when you help people burn calories? Riddle me that, Kim's Video staff.

Not-very cogent point number 4) Movies this year sucked. I mean, they really sucked. I think that besides Borat, one of the only really stirring movies I saw this year was friggin' Memoirs of a Geisha, and I saw that in like January because it was an '05 movie for fuck's sake.. The Illusionist was excellent but a very limited scope, and Dave Chappelle's Block Party was probably the most thought-provoking and subtly intellectual film I viewed this year. Now I'm not discounting The Queen. The Queen may be good. I plan to see it over vacation and issue my judgement/proclamation.
And lastly, Talladega Nights is worth a mention exclusively for the Sacha Baron Cohen character and the scene where Mos Def and Elvis Costello are walking arm and arm in his garden. What a crowning moment.

Some sort of point number 5) Good Reads, Bad Reads, Whatever. Do I look like I care?
Schadenfreude alert! I just had to point out this article denouncing Literary darling Marisha Pessl because, ummm, let's see...I am jealous of her!

As for books I read this year that actually came out this year and I can talk about with some degree of expertise, uhh, I think they were Lisey's Story, and The Thirteenth Tale, the latter of which I actually got to write about for publication. They were both really absorbing and gruesome and fun. Take that, Richard f'in Ford!

The end, for now.

cultural consumption diaries, round deux.

Thanksgiving:

Yummy.


Fellow-ette's Dad:

Oy, such naches. I'm kvelling. Yesterday I spent the day in federal appeals court watching my dad argue forecefully for the right to strike during bankruptcy (to put it simply). The three-judge panel was shrewd and tough (a "hot bench" in legalese) but all in all, pops wowed em with a mix of passion and sick legal evidence. Almost made fellowette think about taking the LSATs. almost, but not quite.


For Your Consideration:

More belly laughs than expected in this Chris Guest farce...yes it was less consistent than his previous films, possibly because it was a more biting and less loving kind of satire (it was Hollywood that was being lampooned after all), but if you love a good purim-related joke and watching Guest's amazing usual cast of characters ham it up in their usual riotous and deadpan way, then it's definitely worth your ten bucks and two hours. Critics, stop drinkin' so much Haterade!

Exhibitions a la Metropolitain:

The Vollard exhibit (he was a dealer of late impressionist and early modern art) is something special, room after room of Cezannes, Picassos, Van Goghs, not to mention two of f-ette's favorite artist groups ever, the Nabis (prophets) and Fauves (wild beasts). A huge, overwhelming art-fest.

The Tiffany exhibit is less cerebrally stimulating (thank the Lord) but so very very pretty. Shiny stained glass! Opalescent mosaics! Opulent extravagence. Good stuff.

Studio Shitty on the Sunset Strip:

Not so shitty this week, surprisingly.

Cry, The Beloved Country:

Half-way through it and already crying for the beloved country. The stuff Patton does with the English language is breathtaking-- almost like he's re-inventing it, combining it wth other languages and creating something entirely new. I probably just unintentionally plagiarized that from some critic but oh heck. It's true.