Note to self: Look up Charles Lamb

I just finished reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society and it was fantastic. Really, a wonderful, wonderful book. It's about an author in postwar London who starts corresponding with people on Guernsey, which had been occupied by Nazis during the war. It does a fantastic job of balancing humor and the dark topics that inevitably come up when Nazis are involved in a story. The voice of the main character reminded me quite a bit of Diana Athill, an editor in postwar London whose book Stet is also definitely worth a read. So obviously a good job with authenticity.

The book was written mostly by one woman--her life's work, essentially. She became quite ill, and it was finished by her niece. And you can't tell at all that there may have been two people working on this book; it flows very well. Of course, it also helps that it's an epistolary novel, so multiple voices are heard by virtue of the format.

It's also gotten me intrigued by Guernsey. I really know nothing about the Channel Islands, much less that they had been occupied. It makes sense; I just never thought about it.

Anyway, great characters, great storytelling, a fast read. Highly recommended.

Let's GO someplace like Bolivia

I may have some negative associations with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but that's only because I was watching it the night we had to put my guinea pig to sleep. (BB!) The movie, though, I love. Newman and Redford are perfect together. So like the rest of the world, I'm mourning the loss of Paul Newman today. He was one of those guys you just can't say anything bad about. So just watch one of his most classic scenes...

Technology and classic comics do not mix

Is anyone else disturbed by the latest storyline in Garfield? Jon got a laptop (making Monday an odd comics day, between Jon getting a laptop and Dithers firing Dagwood via e-mail in Blondie), and now Garfield is using it to communicate. Today he was in a chatroom with other cats; yesterday he actually typed "Feed Me". This totally freaks me out. I mean, I've not infrequently thought that it would be helpful if my cats could communicate with me directly, but something is wrong with Garfield being able to type. One of the questions about this strip is whether Jon understands Garfield's thought bubbles. But Garfield doesn't need thought bubbles! He can just type out his snide comments!

Of course, virtually all of them will boil down to "Feed me," "I hate Mondays," and "Yay! Lasagna!" So maybe it doesn't make such a big difference.

Priorities

The Emmys are tonight and I'm a sucker for awards shows, but tonight it's on against something I couldn't miss--the last game at Yankee Stadium. I grew up in the New York area, going to games, and love baseball. The last game at Yankee Stadium just completely trumps the Emmys, so while I'll flip over during commercials, my eyes are on the Orioles and the Yankees, and the memories.

Baseball in pop culture? Check out Pride of the Yankees and 61*. They're both most definitely worth your time. (And then be sure to check out the video of Lou Gehrig's speech. Can't help but choke up.)

I've got a beautiful feeling

As I had iTunes going a few days ago, I happened to glance at it and noticed that John Raitt was listed as the "Artist" for a song. Now, there's nothing surprising about that--I certainly have plenty of showtunes in there, and he's quite the legend, what with Carousel and Oklahoma and everything, and I've been hooked on his version of "Hey There" lately. The thing that caught me by surprise was that the song was from the 1994 Jekyll & Hyde concept album (which, by the way, is definitely superior to the Broadway version; Anthony Warlow is beyond fantastic). When I got the album, the name John Raitt pretty much meant nothing to me, but now it's blowing my mind how cool it is that he did this album. I love when things like that pop up. Of course, by Jekyll & Hyde, he was playing the father of the romantic interest...but then, truth be told, he was old enough to play her grandfather.

Round-up

It's not that I'm not partaking of any entertainment lately. I am. Just nothing particularly inspiring (though I did do the dance of joy when Dan won Big Brother last night--and even more so when Keesha won the Juror Prize; woo!). So what have I been up to lately?

• I'm in the middle of three books: Ghost Map, Invisible Cities, and Baseball Between the Numbers. I'm enjoying Ghost Map the most; interesting topic (cholera!), good writing, fascinating people. Plus, history and London. Win win! Invisible Cities is more enjoyable than I thought it would be; in general, I'm not a huge fan of abstract writing. But the descriptions of some of the cities are quite fun. Baseball Between the Numbers is best read in small doses, with some skimming when the numbers get a bit too dense. Some of the revelations are interesting, but I fear that I'm not retaining much.
• I haven't stopped watching tv. Maybe at some point I'll write about the shows I'm watching; Privileged, for example, is cute, but I have a feeling that unless I remember to season pass it on my DVR, I'll totally forget about it.
• Haven't seen any movies lately. The last thing I watched from Netflix was a DVD of extras to a season of Dr. Who. Right now, I have Catch-22 and Mad Hot Ballroom out.
• Signature is doing a production of Les Mis. As you can imagine, I am through the roof. Signature + Les Mis = WIN. I'm so psyched for this. And they're doing backstage tours! Holy crow! Made of awesome! The only thing that might make it better would be if Will Gartshore were in it, but I don't know who he could play--he's a bit too old for the students, I think.
• There are some other productions coming up I'm excited about--Ragtime at the Kennedy Center, Grey Gardens at the Studio, Arcadia at the Folger. It's a good theater season. Altar Boyz is at the Bethesda Theatre, and I'm thinking of checking that out.
• I need to make it to the Newseum and see the FBI exhibit. I have until next June, at least.

Why history and literature make a good double major

Not to delve into politics, but this video is awesome. And since it involves Les Mis, I'm posting it:



Actually, it's not so off-the-wall that Les Mis would be used for political means. The book itself is overtly political, written in response to the 1848 student risings (though cleverly disguised by writing about the 1832 risings!). Robert E. Lee thought it symbolized the Confederate cause and had his troops read it; they were called "Lee's Miserables."

Um, fairly clean, I think

I have gotten hooked on How Clean Is Your House? on BBC America. Love it. Every time I feel bad about my apartment getting a bit dusty, I just think of this show, and am totally over it. (I mean, they not infrequently have to use shovels to get to the floor in these homes.) Plus, it's so fun seeing homes in Britain! And fabulous accents! And Kim calling everyone "My love"!

I just can't imagine being one of the people doing the heavy lifting in the background. Talk about completely gross work for very little benefit. Of course, I suppose at least they do get to be on television; after all, there are people out there doing that kind of work who don't get to be on tv.

It would be nice if they had a show where they revisited a bunch of people. Each episode does show how the person is doing a couple weeks or a month later, but I want to know how everyone's coping in 6 months, or a year. Like how What Not to Wear does the occasion episode where they bring back people they've made over, to see how things are holding up. Because some of the people on this show seem to have more issues than just letting the cleaning going for a little while.

I don't mind a parasite. I object to a cut-rate one.

I recently finished reading Catch-22. For some reason I had included it on my list of things to do; I honestly don't know what spurred me to pick that book, but what the heck? I guess I just wanted to know the story behind the phrase. I don't think I knew anything about the book at all when I picked it up.

I'm glad I chose it. It was way different than I thought. For one thing, it's very funny. It's all absurdist humor, which is mostly very amusing, but sometimes gets old. The book is almost 500 pages long, and some of the exchanges do seem very repetitive. Admittedly, that's partially the point--these people are just going around and around. But the frequent absurd exchanges can get to be a bit much. I preferred the stories about Minderbinder and his empire. I mean, chocolate-covered cotton balls? Genius!

A lot of times, I have problems with books that aren't necessarily straightforward, but I didn't really have that problem with this book, though there is a lot of jumping around in time, without necessarily knowing when the action is taking place in the context of the book. I did find the circular logic of the book trying at times, but that's kind of the point of the book.

But what I really appreciated was the portrayal of World War II. We have a tendency to view WWII as this great, noble war, particularly in light of Vietnam; Catch-22 came out in 1961, and Heller had been working on it for years. And in the book, World War II looks anything but noble. The leadership is mocked, and the soldiers are largely portrayed as men who really just want to go home. In some ways, it seems a lot more realistic than some of the portrayals of WWII we see a lot. Not that I don't love Band of Brothers, but it's nice to see an alternative to that.

Speaking of other sides of war, I crossed another item off my to-do list by watching Casablanca this evening. I knew pretty much every line in the last scene, but it was good seeing it in context. And again, I was surprised at how funny it was. Rick? Totally awesome. Love him. Plus, I do have a weakness for a guy who's pining. Sometimes it was hard to just listen to the dialogue, since it was so familiar, but the writing was really good--as was the acting. So yep, totally recommend it. Also, at less than 2 hours, it's a lot faster to watch Casablanca than read Catch-22.

Come hear the music play

Tonight I saw a cabaret of lost songs of Broadway, 1940-1950 at the Signature. I was familiar with two of the singers--Will Gartshore and Eleasha Gamble, both of whom I've seen in numerous things at Signature (and elsewhere). There were two other singers (Kimberly Sherbach and Jobari Parker-Namdar) that I didn't recognize, but they were all absolutely fantastic. As the theme of the cabaret suggests, the songs weren't the typical fare, so I only knew one. And I actually quite enjoyed all of them, but the bonus of the songs being from that era is that even had I not liked one, well, none of the songs were particularly long. So if I didn't like it, it would've been over soon enough!

They seemed to pick fairly amusing songs (though not all of them were). And I loved the descriptions of the plots of some of these shows. Like the one that was about a washroom attendant at a nightclub who was in love with the lead singer and tried to knock out her boyfriend with some roofies, only he wound up drinking the spiked drink himself, and had a daydream where the singer was the wife (mistress?) of King Louis XIV. Of course! And seriously, there were a half dozen crazy plots like this. A couple of guys during WWII inherit money, go to Texas, open a house for wives of men overseas, only people think it's a brothel! And so on.

And apparently, they made a bunch of these into movies. One in 1970, starring Florence Henderson! I totally want to look them up and Netflix them.

They also had songs from A Touch of Venus, with lyrics by Kurt Weill. I've known about Weill for years, but hearing the lyrics he wrote? Dude was hilarious. Which consequently makes me like Bertolt Brecht even more, as the two worked together.

I'm bummed I missed the first one they did (songs from 1930-1940, as well as a few other cabarets), but will totally have to check out more of these. Though it's a bit more awkward seeing these alone than it is to see a typical play, as the theater is set up as a cabaret--so everyone is sitting around small tables (and many people with wine and such; clearly these people have too much money). I did wind up having a nice chat with an older man who wound up at my table with me, though, so it all worked out in the end.

At least I know who I'll marry

I had never heard of Sarah Haskins until a friend sent me a link to this video; now, after watching this and a bunch of other of her pieces (you can find them on YouTube), I kind of want to marry her.


I totally love chick flicks; I would totally see (or have seen) the majority of the movies mentioned in this piece. But like her, I don't take them seriously. As she points out, they're really just princess movies for grown-ups.