In my zeal for The Good Wife, my new West Wing, I've discovered another thing to love about it.
With the exception of the third episode, titled "You Can't Go Home Again," all season one episodes are one-word titles. Season 2 episodes are two-word titles, and season 3 episodes will be three-word titles. This show has my kind of writers, and I want them to make it to season 16!
Monday, September 12, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
First Lines from Books I Love #4: The Secret of Everything
About three or four months ago, sitting on some kind of odd, circular red seat near the fitting rooms at Target in Golden Valley, waiting for Mom and Meridith, I opened the Target Book Club edition of How to Bake a Perfect Life by Barbara O'Neal (which includes a letter from her to Target shoppers, being that Target plays a small part in the book, and she loves Target), and began reading. I liked the descriptions of mother doughs, and of Ramona's kitchen, but didn't get further than that. Out of curiosity about a month ago, I ordered How to Bake a Perfect Life, remembering that brief encounter, and began reading it on August 25. I remember that so specifically because I had written about it on the 26th (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/08/perfect-day.html). Because of that experience, I ordered from abebooks.com her previous two novels, her first, The Lost Recipe for Happiness, and her second, The Secret of Everything. Right when The Lost Recipe for Happiness arrived in the mail, I had just finished The Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark by Ridley Pearson, which merits its own entry soon, since I ordered books 2, 3, and 4 from abebooks.com, and am anticipating book 5 in 2012.
When I opened to the first page of The Lost Recipe for Happiness and began reading, I immediately began sighing with pleasure all over again, just as I had with How to Bake a Perfect Life. Imagine coming home from a hard, yet satisfying day of work. You've done some good in your part of the world. Your family or boyfriend or girlfriend comes home not long after, and dinner is many of your favorite foods. The mail has brought the latest issue of your favorite magazine. On TV, reruns, but in particular, a rerun of your favorite episode of your favorite show. Feel that bliss, that warmth, that peace, that love? That's what The Lost Recipe for Happiness feels like. That's why I ordered it, because I wanted again what Babara O'Neal had given me in How to Bake a Perfect Life, but also to see how she did it in her first novel.
With The Secret of Everything, I've found my favorite Barbara O'Neal novel, and my new favorite novel. This one will be going into my permanent collection (It's been a while since I've mentioned it: My permanent collection are the books that will move with me when we move; I also have collections of books around my room, but this collection is in two boxes that I use as shelves for now). O'Neal (a pseudonym, by the way, as she is Barbara Samuel) is a poet in a novelist's body. I want to give out more than just the first two paragraphs, but you need to explore this book for yourself too.
So here goes, the first two paragraphs:
"On a foggy August morning, Tessa Harlow had finally tired of her long wallow on the Santa Cruz beaches. Leaving her father's tidy little bungalow as she did every morning, she carried her breakfast down to the surf: a mango fresh from the local grocer, a hunk of sourdough bread, and a hefty cup of tea she bought from the stand on the corner.
Settling on the sand, she skimmed the thick outer skin from the mango and bit into the buttery flesh, mopping the juice from her chin with a bandana. The tea was hot and milky, sweet with real sugar, and the bread---while not quite as tangy as San Francisco sourdough---complemented the mango perfectly."
Now go find it, and bask in the words and descriptions of a novelist who is stunning in her approach to the world, poetry in paragraphs. As I read many descriptions, some on one page alone, I grinned wide, gasped a little from the beauty of her prose, and felt my heart swell over and over. This novel embodies what reading means to me.
When I opened to the first page of The Lost Recipe for Happiness and began reading, I immediately began sighing with pleasure all over again, just as I had with How to Bake a Perfect Life. Imagine coming home from a hard, yet satisfying day of work. You've done some good in your part of the world. Your family or boyfriend or girlfriend comes home not long after, and dinner is many of your favorite foods. The mail has brought the latest issue of your favorite magazine. On TV, reruns, but in particular, a rerun of your favorite episode of your favorite show. Feel that bliss, that warmth, that peace, that love? That's what The Lost Recipe for Happiness feels like. That's why I ordered it, because I wanted again what Babara O'Neal had given me in How to Bake a Perfect Life, but also to see how she did it in her first novel.
With The Secret of Everything, I've found my favorite Barbara O'Neal novel, and my new favorite novel. This one will be going into my permanent collection (It's been a while since I've mentioned it: My permanent collection are the books that will move with me when we move; I also have collections of books around my room, but this collection is in two boxes that I use as shelves for now). O'Neal (a pseudonym, by the way, as she is Barbara Samuel) is a poet in a novelist's body. I want to give out more than just the first two paragraphs, but you need to explore this book for yourself too.
So here goes, the first two paragraphs:
"On a foggy August morning, Tessa Harlow had finally tired of her long wallow on the Santa Cruz beaches. Leaving her father's tidy little bungalow as she did every morning, she carried her breakfast down to the surf: a mango fresh from the local grocer, a hunk of sourdough bread, and a hefty cup of tea she bought from the stand on the corner.
Settling on the sand, she skimmed the thick outer skin from the mango and bit into the buttery flesh, mopping the juice from her chin with a bandana. The tea was hot and milky, sweet with real sugar, and the bread---while not quite as tangy as San Francisco sourdough---complemented the mango perfectly."
Now go find it, and bask in the words and descriptions of a novelist who is stunning in her approach to the world, poetry in paragraphs. As I read many descriptions, some on one page alone, I grinned wide, gasped a little from the beauty of her prose, and felt my heart swell over and over. This novel embodies what reading means to me.
The $0.50 Bargains
I hate Panda Express. The mushroom chicken is ok, but every time my family and I leave, I feel just as empty as when I came in. I know the old Chinese food joke, but Panda Express has always struck me as serving Chinese food for bland corporate office worker types.
So when we were in the car today, and Dad suggested Panda Express for dinner, I objected. I appreciate that he's the driver on these errands, but I couldn't do it. I didn't want it, and even though we go once every month and a half or so, it's still too much.
We drove first to a barbecue place that had been written about in The Signal (That's how desperate we are to find anywhere new to eat, by relying on quite possibly the worst newspaper I've ever read, even though I worked there for a time), and it was small, with a few tables inside, and a big drive-thru, but the music was so loud, it was impossible to eat there without needing a hearing aid by the time you left. The only reason The Signal wrote about this place is because they don't know any better.
We drove to the north end of the Santa Clarita Valley, because there's a diner called The Halfway House, and it's almost in isolated territory, and therefore changed its hours in September, now open from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. seven days a week. Then Mom had heard about another barbecue place called Smokey Joe's. It's now being turned into a Thai restaurant, and Dad loves Thai food, so that'll be a possibility after they open on the 19th.
So where to then? I gave up. I told Dad that if he wanted to go to Panda Express, fine. I'd live with it. At that point, I was hungry and it didn't matter. He had also suggested wings, and that meant Wing Stop, and that would have been better than Panda Express. But then, even better, we spotted the KFC across from Big Lots. Yes! I could find something there without any problem! And most importantly, I could feel full after I ate.
We parked, and walked into the KFC. Every place we go to that's empty inevitably fills up after we walk in. It always happens. And when we went in, to the front of the line, a few people walked in about two minutes after. About seven in all. We could be a boon to struggling businesses.
I was thinking about a double breast fillet combo, but then saw a large popcorn chicken combo with potato wedges and a medium drink. No biscuit, but two biscuits could be had for $0.99, and I ordered all of that. Mom, Dad and Meridith ordered their choices, and we sat down at a table, and Dad saw that Big Lots was across the street and said he wanted to go in after to see about a cell phone case, since the last one he got was from there.
My heart started beating a little faster. Big Lots is excellent for discounted DVDs and books, both of which I love a lot. And sure, he could look for his cell phone case, but I was not leaving until I scoured absolutely every single DVD and book in that store.
We got to Big Lots and I sped for the DVDs. By the time I had looked at every single rack, I had seven DVDs, and I knew I wanted King of California (as a Santa Clarita souvenir, since part of it was filmed here, including at the Costco we have, and also because it represents the Santa Clarita I knew in these 8 years, the peaceful side trying to get out, but buried under all the plastic bullshit), and Running Mates, a TV movie from 2000 starring Tom Selleck as a presidential candidate with a devoted wife (Nancy Travis) and exes (Laura Linney, Teri Hatcher, and Faye Dunaway) all looking to get him elected president of the United States. I think I saw the trailer on the first disc of the first season of Mad About You when I Netflixed it and wanted to see it because of the presidential campaign aspect, and because I've always liked Tom Selleck, even when he's played the same kind of persona over and over. But as to the other DVDs, such as The Tailor of Panama, Cold Souls, and W., they were dependent on what books I found in that section.
And I found a lot. I first picked up The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood by Sy Montgomery, part of the wave of books about pets that came out after Marley and Me became popular, evidenced by author John Grogan's blurb on the cover of this book. I never read Marley and Me and never will because I'm a dog lover and it's hard enough when it does happen without having to read about it. But a pig's love I can read about.
Then came Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland, The World in Half by Cristina Henriquez, Dog Days: Dispatches from Bedlam Farm by Jon Katz, The First Thing Smoking by Nelson Eubanks, and Arroyo by Summer Wood (owing to my newfound interest in New Mexico, spurred on by The Secret of Everything by Babara O'Neal, which you will find out a little about in the next entry).
In the midst of finding these books, Meridith handed me The Bookseller of Kabul, about a man who provided the population of Kabul with books for 30 years, even through oppressive regimes. I know that I've been given a gift with my passionate love for reading, and I want to try to spark this in others, which is why I've been researching literacy organizations, especially impressed with the ones that give books to children of low-income families, giving them the chance to see what reading is and what it can become for them. I've found one based in Henderson that I want to be part of when my family and I finally move there, and that's why I sparked to The Bookseller of Kabul. I'm thinking of starting it after I'm done with The Secret of Everything.
While I selected these books, I gradually got rid of The Tailor of Panama, Cold Souls, W., and Carole and Lombard. I had chosen the latter because I wanted to see how James Brolin portrayed Clark Gable, but given a choice between movies and books, I'll take the books every time. Plus, I was adding up $3 and $3 and $3 and $3 and so on and didn't really want to pay well over $30 for my haul. There was one nice find in the gray $3 label on The World in Half corresponding to the book being only $2. But I still didn't want to pay so much.
At the register, after Mom, Dad and Meridith were done, Meridith was keeping closer tabs on the prices of my books than I was, only because she wanted to see that The World in Half scanned as $2. But then, something incredible happened: One book scanned as $0.50, after The World in Half. Then another. Then The First Thing Smoking scanned as $3, followed by three more $0.50 books. I ended up paying only $14.68! It felt like I had put 50 cents over and over into those sticker and other miscellaneous machines you found at the entrance of various stores with all those generally useless but fun plastic trinkets, and gotten something very cool every time.
So when we were in the car today, and Dad suggested Panda Express for dinner, I objected. I appreciate that he's the driver on these errands, but I couldn't do it. I didn't want it, and even though we go once every month and a half or so, it's still too much.
We drove first to a barbecue place that had been written about in The Signal (That's how desperate we are to find anywhere new to eat, by relying on quite possibly the worst newspaper I've ever read, even though I worked there for a time), and it was small, with a few tables inside, and a big drive-thru, but the music was so loud, it was impossible to eat there without needing a hearing aid by the time you left. The only reason The Signal wrote about this place is because they don't know any better.
We drove to the north end of the Santa Clarita Valley, because there's a diner called The Halfway House, and it's almost in isolated territory, and therefore changed its hours in September, now open from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. seven days a week. Then Mom had heard about another barbecue place called Smokey Joe's. It's now being turned into a Thai restaurant, and Dad loves Thai food, so that'll be a possibility after they open on the 19th.
So where to then? I gave up. I told Dad that if he wanted to go to Panda Express, fine. I'd live with it. At that point, I was hungry and it didn't matter. He had also suggested wings, and that meant Wing Stop, and that would have been better than Panda Express. But then, even better, we spotted the KFC across from Big Lots. Yes! I could find something there without any problem! And most importantly, I could feel full after I ate.
We parked, and walked into the KFC. Every place we go to that's empty inevitably fills up after we walk in. It always happens. And when we went in, to the front of the line, a few people walked in about two minutes after. About seven in all. We could be a boon to struggling businesses.
I was thinking about a double breast fillet combo, but then saw a large popcorn chicken combo with potato wedges and a medium drink. No biscuit, but two biscuits could be had for $0.99, and I ordered all of that. Mom, Dad and Meridith ordered their choices, and we sat down at a table, and Dad saw that Big Lots was across the street and said he wanted to go in after to see about a cell phone case, since the last one he got was from there.
My heart started beating a little faster. Big Lots is excellent for discounted DVDs and books, both of which I love a lot. And sure, he could look for his cell phone case, but I was not leaving until I scoured absolutely every single DVD and book in that store.
We got to Big Lots and I sped for the DVDs. By the time I had looked at every single rack, I had seven DVDs, and I knew I wanted King of California (as a Santa Clarita souvenir, since part of it was filmed here, including at the Costco we have, and also because it represents the Santa Clarita I knew in these 8 years, the peaceful side trying to get out, but buried under all the plastic bullshit), and Running Mates, a TV movie from 2000 starring Tom Selleck as a presidential candidate with a devoted wife (Nancy Travis) and exes (Laura Linney, Teri Hatcher, and Faye Dunaway) all looking to get him elected president of the United States. I think I saw the trailer on the first disc of the first season of Mad About You when I Netflixed it and wanted to see it because of the presidential campaign aspect, and because I've always liked Tom Selleck, even when he's played the same kind of persona over and over. But as to the other DVDs, such as The Tailor of Panama, Cold Souls, and W., they were dependent on what books I found in that section.
And I found a lot. I first picked up The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood by Sy Montgomery, part of the wave of books about pets that came out after Marley and Me became popular, evidenced by author John Grogan's blurb on the cover of this book. I never read Marley and Me and never will because I'm a dog lover and it's hard enough when it does happen without having to read about it. But a pig's love I can read about.
Then came Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland, The World in Half by Cristina Henriquez, Dog Days: Dispatches from Bedlam Farm by Jon Katz, The First Thing Smoking by Nelson Eubanks, and Arroyo by Summer Wood (owing to my newfound interest in New Mexico, spurred on by The Secret of Everything by Babara O'Neal, which you will find out a little about in the next entry).
In the midst of finding these books, Meridith handed me The Bookseller of Kabul, about a man who provided the population of Kabul with books for 30 years, even through oppressive regimes. I know that I've been given a gift with my passionate love for reading, and I want to try to spark this in others, which is why I've been researching literacy organizations, especially impressed with the ones that give books to children of low-income families, giving them the chance to see what reading is and what it can become for them. I've found one based in Henderson that I want to be part of when my family and I finally move there, and that's why I sparked to The Bookseller of Kabul. I'm thinking of starting it after I'm done with The Secret of Everything.
While I selected these books, I gradually got rid of The Tailor of Panama, Cold Souls, W., and Carole and Lombard. I had chosen the latter because I wanted to see how James Brolin portrayed Clark Gable, but given a choice between movies and books, I'll take the books every time. Plus, I was adding up $3 and $3 and $3 and $3 and so on and didn't really want to pay well over $30 for my haul. There was one nice find in the gray $3 label on The World in Half corresponding to the book being only $2. But I still didn't want to pay so much.
At the register, after Mom, Dad and Meridith were done, Meridith was keeping closer tabs on the prices of my books than I was, only because she wanted to see that The World in Half scanned as $2. But then, something incredible happened: One book scanned as $0.50, after The World in Half. Then another. Then The First Thing Smoking scanned as $3, followed by three more $0.50 books. I ended up paying only $14.68! It felt like I had put 50 cents over and over into those sticker and other miscellaneous machines you found at the entrance of various stores with all those generally useless but fun plastic trinkets, and gotten something very cool every time.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
I Got a Subbing Job!
The automated sub system called the house, and Dad picked it up because I don't know what my code is, and he has it written down. Meridith's working in his middle school already as a one-on-one aide to one of the disabled kids there, so the call was for me, to be a substitute campus supervisor tomorrow, with my favorite hours, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Starts early, ends early.
I'm a bit disappointed because it'll be hot enough again tomorrow that I won't be able to do as much walking as I had hoped in order to drop a pound or two, but because of the heat, perhaps the kids will be calm tomorrow. I don't know what the new crop of 7th graders is like, since this will be my first time as a substitute campus supervisor in the new school year, but I look forward to finding out.
Made my lunch, got at least one book for tomorrow for my lunchtime and when I'm done with work (I'll look for another viable one before I go to bed), and all I need is a shower, and I'll cover that later. I'm psyched! A paycheck again!
I'm a bit disappointed because it'll be hot enough again tomorrow that I won't be able to do as much walking as I had hoped in order to drop a pound or two, but because of the heat, perhaps the kids will be calm tomorrow. I don't know what the new crop of 7th graders is like, since this will be my first time as a substitute campus supervisor in the new school year, but I look forward to finding out.
Made my lunch, got at least one book for tomorrow for my lunchtime and when I'm done with work (I'll look for another viable one before I go to bed), and all I need is a shower, and I'll cover that later. I'm psyched! A paycheck again!
Book Gambling
I love my future hometown of Henderson, and my future home city of Las Vegas, but I am not a gambler. I walk by craps and roulette tables, only pausing to watch the roulette wheel spin, because I like watching things spin. A few Vegas trips ago, my family and I were at New York-New York, and I blanched at finding $10 minimum blackjack tables. The most gambling you will find me doing there is sitting in front of a penny slot machine, playing one line at a time, not even hoping that that one line will turn into a jackpot a few times. I do it for a kind of unique meditation. I sit there, I watch the reels spin, I think about my life, my writing, what I want to write next, basically everything. And there's a total calm that comes over me. Vegas does not move as fast as TV and movies try to portray it. It does allow for moments like mine.
Instead, I gamble with books. Ever since my local library closed to transfer over to be controlled by the City of Santa Clarita and therefore be fobbed off onto a corporate outfit from the east coast, I've had no reason to go back. I don't want to sign up for a new card, I don't want to face a drastically reduced selection of books, which still is at about 250,000+, I'm sure, but when my library was part of the County of Los Angeles library system, there was much more room for discovery, such as when I found the works of Charles Bukowski and he became one of my favorites. Plus, even back when the library had closed in June, we were hoping to move to Las Vegas, and even though we're still waiting, I'm not going to start anything new there anyway because with luck, it would be a short time of use anyway.
I thank every known deity in this instance for abebooks.com, which has sellers all across the country with used books at hand, and therefore cheap prices and cheap shipping, sometimes free, although the $3.99 with free shipping usually means that it was $1 for the book and $2.99 for shipping, both factored in together. And I need books. It's how I live. So I started with the list of Amazon links I have to books I've been interested in, and ordered those which grabbed me right away. And then this collection grew and grew, and now my room looks like a library of sorts. I have a permanent collection of a little over 50 books, which will move with me when we move. I am not going to give up these books. The other books are tentative, based on how I feel about them after I've read them. Would I go back to these books like I do with my permanent collection? Would they provide me with continual inspiration? Those weren't my reasons for buying all these books. I wanted a steady stream of words to keep me nourished each day. I thrive on really good books. When I get deep into one, like I did with The Lost Recipe of Happiness by Barbara O'Neal, which I finished after lunch, my heart swells, making me feel like I could be pulled up into the air, free to float and fly around in pure happiness. I live for those stretches of time when nothing else in the world is around but me and a wonderful book in my hands.
And so I gamble again, now with a novel called My Hollywood by Mona Simpson, about the immigrant women who work for various Hollywood families. It's very slowgoing, hard to find a part of this story to settle into. The story of the main nanny, Lola, is interesting, but there's no spark, nothing in this world that I can settle into. I'm on page 50, and I'll give it about 30-50 more pages and see if anything takes. But if not, there are more books. It is the kind of gambling I like, after all.
Instead, I gamble with books. Ever since my local library closed to transfer over to be controlled by the City of Santa Clarita and therefore be fobbed off onto a corporate outfit from the east coast, I've had no reason to go back. I don't want to sign up for a new card, I don't want to face a drastically reduced selection of books, which still is at about 250,000+, I'm sure, but when my library was part of the County of Los Angeles library system, there was much more room for discovery, such as when I found the works of Charles Bukowski and he became one of my favorites. Plus, even back when the library had closed in June, we were hoping to move to Las Vegas, and even though we're still waiting, I'm not going to start anything new there anyway because with luck, it would be a short time of use anyway.
I thank every known deity in this instance for abebooks.com, which has sellers all across the country with used books at hand, and therefore cheap prices and cheap shipping, sometimes free, although the $3.99 with free shipping usually means that it was $1 for the book and $2.99 for shipping, both factored in together. And I need books. It's how I live. So I started with the list of Amazon links I have to books I've been interested in, and ordered those which grabbed me right away. And then this collection grew and grew, and now my room looks like a library of sorts. I have a permanent collection of a little over 50 books, which will move with me when we move. I am not going to give up these books. The other books are tentative, based on how I feel about them after I've read them. Would I go back to these books like I do with my permanent collection? Would they provide me with continual inspiration? Those weren't my reasons for buying all these books. I wanted a steady stream of words to keep me nourished each day. I thrive on really good books. When I get deep into one, like I did with The Lost Recipe of Happiness by Barbara O'Neal, which I finished after lunch, my heart swells, making me feel like I could be pulled up into the air, free to float and fly around in pure happiness. I live for those stretches of time when nothing else in the world is around but me and a wonderful book in my hands.
And so I gamble again, now with a novel called My Hollywood by Mona Simpson, about the immigrant women who work for various Hollywood families. It's very slowgoing, hard to find a part of this story to settle into. The story of the main nanny, Lola, is interesting, but there's no spark, nothing in this world that I can settle into. I'm on page 50, and I'll give it about 30-50 more pages and see if anything takes. But if not, there are more books. It is the kind of gambling I like, after all.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
The Good Wife and A Dog Year
I just got online and checked the family e-mail account. The Practice: Vol. 1, disc 1 was received by Netflix, and my association with them is now over. Of course, a lot has changed between the time I watched the second episode of that disc and now. For one, though I like the writing of David E. Kelley, I find it sometimes too wacky. The breaking of the fourth wall on Boston Legal is entertaining (such as a judge incredulously asking, "The same firm for both sides?" upon seeing Denny Crane announce that he'll be counsel for the defendant in a case about Vermont (was it Vermont?) wanting to secede from the United States, and Crane replying, "Saves on guest cast."), but beyond the eminently entertaining James Spader (who I intend to watch on The Office even though I've only seen a scant few episodes of the show), it's not my type of legal drama. I like underlying tension, not all of it brought to the fore right away.
In short, I became addicted to The Good Wife last Sunday night. It may have been in the works for some time. Maybe reading that many West Wing fans had gravitated to the show stuck in my mind, but I don't recall it affecting my decision. I'd heard that Parker Posey will be playing Eli Gold's (Alan Cumming, thereby reuniting them) ex-wife in the new season, but even though Posey is one of my favorite actresses, that didn't do it either. They had a half-hour catch-up special first, defining the characters, showing clips of the major storylines of the past two seasons, with interviews with the cast and creators Robert and Michelle King. I'd seen a bit of the pilot episode, but it didn't do anything for me then.
And yet, even though I'm fiercely devoted to The Big Bang Theory, which I consider my replacement for my passion for The West Wing (I still have it, as well as season 1-4 and 7 on DVD, but I mean passion for an ongoing TV show), I was looking for an hour-long show of which I could have the same passion as I did for the seven years that The West Wing aired, even through the horrifyingly bad 5th season (until "The Supremes"), and the slowgoing 6th season, before the 7th season which almost brought it back to Sorkinese glory. I wanted to feel that again for a TV show.
Since I've rediscovered that my life's passion is reading, I don't devote as much time to watching TV, but I wanted something that I know I could tune in to each week, just like I did with The West Wing. After the half-hour Good Wife special, I was intrigued, and decided to watch the episode that followed, which involved, partly, Fred Dalton Thompson, playing himself, defending the oil interests of Venezuela. It was an episode that included a body double for Hugo Chavez on a satellite linkup on a video screen, walking back and forth, in front of a table of his advisors, his head never seen, and with Thompson clearly having some fun in the episode, it veered very nearly into David E. Kelley territory without the soapbox Kelley usually stands so tall on. I thought that part of the episode to be very unusual for the series, even though I was entirely new to it, but I sensed the mature drama inherent in it, the humor that comes organically from the characters, and not lines forced on them. Therefore, this is my new show. Well into last night, I watched on the CBS website that episode that came before the one I saw, and I'll be watching the new season. One day I'll catch up with the DVDs, but I'm ready for this. I'm excited. I feel like this could be my new West Wing. And the cast is just as prestigious and masterful as The West Wing cast was.
Getting back to Netflix, over the past week, I've been thinking about what movie has affected me most out of the hundreds I saw in five years from the discs I received and the occasional movie I streamed on the site. I first thought of Unstrung Heroes, about a young boy (Nathan Watt) confused about the changing world around him (His mother (Andie MacDowell) has cancer, and his inventor father (John Turturro) is deeply distracted by this), who goes to live with his two eccentric, hoarder uncles, one who is paranoid that he's being followed (Michael Richards) and the other (Maury Chaykin) who collects balls that have been washed down the sewers. When the boy asks the uncle about it, he replies, "You know how seashells hold the sounds of the ocean? I think balls hold the sounds of the children who bounce them." I hadn't even seen the movie yet and I fell for it right away from that line just from seeing the trailer on the Netflix website. Not long after, I bought it from Amazon and I'm proud to have it in my collection.
But no, not Unstrung Heroes, not to the extent of really getting into my head, pressing it up against my life and seeing what relates to me as a person and as a writer. The movie that I know has been on my mind for a long time now, even though I hadn't thought about it up until last week, is A Dog Year, starring Jeff Bridges, originally airing on HBO. Jeff Bridges is one of my favorite actors and one of my heroes, so that was a natural attraction to this one. What impressed me most was how quiet this movie is. It never gets melodramatic in the story of writer Jon Katz (Bridges) in the midst of a mid-life crisis, who adopts a problematic border collie, which eventually leads to training by a dog whisperer (Lois Smith), who also provides Katz with greater understanding of his life and the kind of person he needs to be. Writer/director George LaVoo never pushes anything, never tries to ramp things up. This is Katz's life and he has to work through it, even while he's trying to get the dog to come to him at an airport, surrounded by people, explaning the current state of his existence to all of them. I am a dog lover, so that's part of it, but what's amazing is how LaVoo finds drama in the quietest moments, in Katz simply making another bologna sandwich. Where is his life going? Who is he? Can he still be the same man that he was? Change can happen gradually. That's what this movie shows, and it's most effective as well because of its 80-minute running time. That's all. That's all it needs. Utter simplicity in storytelling. It's a rare quality, and A Dog Year has it, which is also why I bought it from Amazon, and received it today. I want to use it as a model for my own storytelling, be it in a novel I may write one day or some kind of literary journalism. I'm happy to own it now.
In short, I became addicted to The Good Wife last Sunday night. It may have been in the works for some time. Maybe reading that many West Wing fans had gravitated to the show stuck in my mind, but I don't recall it affecting my decision. I'd heard that Parker Posey will be playing Eli Gold's (Alan Cumming, thereby reuniting them) ex-wife in the new season, but even though Posey is one of my favorite actresses, that didn't do it either. They had a half-hour catch-up special first, defining the characters, showing clips of the major storylines of the past two seasons, with interviews with the cast and creators Robert and Michelle King. I'd seen a bit of the pilot episode, but it didn't do anything for me then.
And yet, even though I'm fiercely devoted to The Big Bang Theory, which I consider my replacement for my passion for The West Wing (I still have it, as well as season 1-4 and 7 on DVD, but I mean passion for an ongoing TV show), I was looking for an hour-long show of which I could have the same passion as I did for the seven years that The West Wing aired, even through the horrifyingly bad 5th season (until "The Supremes"), and the slowgoing 6th season, before the 7th season which almost brought it back to Sorkinese glory. I wanted to feel that again for a TV show.
Since I've rediscovered that my life's passion is reading, I don't devote as much time to watching TV, but I wanted something that I know I could tune in to each week, just like I did with The West Wing. After the half-hour Good Wife special, I was intrigued, and decided to watch the episode that followed, which involved, partly, Fred Dalton Thompson, playing himself, defending the oil interests of Venezuela. It was an episode that included a body double for Hugo Chavez on a satellite linkup on a video screen, walking back and forth, in front of a table of his advisors, his head never seen, and with Thompson clearly having some fun in the episode, it veered very nearly into David E. Kelley territory without the soapbox Kelley usually stands so tall on. I thought that part of the episode to be very unusual for the series, even though I was entirely new to it, but I sensed the mature drama inherent in it, the humor that comes organically from the characters, and not lines forced on them. Therefore, this is my new show. Well into last night, I watched on the CBS website that episode that came before the one I saw, and I'll be watching the new season. One day I'll catch up with the DVDs, but I'm ready for this. I'm excited. I feel like this could be my new West Wing. And the cast is just as prestigious and masterful as The West Wing cast was.
Getting back to Netflix, over the past week, I've been thinking about what movie has affected me most out of the hundreds I saw in five years from the discs I received and the occasional movie I streamed on the site. I first thought of Unstrung Heroes, about a young boy (Nathan Watt) confused about the changing world around him (His mother (Andie MacDowell) has cancer, and his inventor father (John Turturro) is deeply distracted by this), who goes to live with his two eccentric, hoarder uncles, one who is paranoid that he's being followed (Michael Richards) and the other (Maury Chaykin) who collects balls that have been washed down the sewers. When the boy asks the uncle about it, he replies, "You know how seashells hold the sounds of the ocean? I think balls hold the sounds of the children who bounce them." I hadn't even seen the movie yet and I fell for it right away from that line just from seeing the trailer on the Netflix website. Not long after, I bought it from Amazon and I'm proud to have it in my collection.
But no, not Unstrung Heroes, not to the extent of really getting into my head, pressing it up against my life and seeing what relates to me as a person and as a writer. The movie that I know has been on my mind for a long time now, even though I hadn't thought about it up until last week, is A Dog Year, starring Jeff Bridges, originally airing on HBO. Jeff Bridges is one of my favorite actors and one of my heroes, so that was a natural attraction to this one. What impressed me most was how quiet this movie is. It never gets melodramatic in the story of writer Jon Katz (Bridges) in the midst of a mid-life crisis, who adopts a problematic border collie, which eventually leads to training by a dog whisperer (Lois Smith), who also provides Katz with greater understanding of his life and the kind of person he needs to be. Writer/director George LaVoo never pushes anything, never tries to ramp things up. This is Katz's life and he has to work through it, even while he's trying to get the dog to come to him at an airport, surrounded by people, explaning the current state of his existence to all of them. I am a dog lover, so that's part of it, but what's amazing is how LaVoo finds drama in the quietest moments, in Katz simply making another bologna sandwich. Where is his life going? Who is he? Can he still be the same man that he was? Change can happen gradually. That's what this movie shows, and it's most effective as well because of its 80-minute running time. That's all. That's all it needs. Utter simplicity in storytelling. It's a rare quality, and A Dog Year has it, which is also why I bought it from Amazon, and received it today. I want to use it as a model for my own storytelling, be it in a novel I may write one day or some kind of literary journalism. I'm happy to own it now.
Friday, September 2, 2011
The Peace of a Mall
Rare is the day that Mom, Meridith and I go anywhere significant during the week, since Dad works all week, from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. ("Significant" in this valley meaning anywhere for more than two to three hours). Rarer still are the days that we spend that much time at the Valencia Town Center Mall. Yesterday was that day.
There was an open house last night at La Mesa Junior High, and Dad naturally had to be there to explain to the parents his curriculum, take any questions, etc. So for Mom, Meridith and I, the question for us was where we'd want to go for over three hours. Could we really stand to go to the Walmart Supercenter on Carl Boyer Drive again for that length of time? What about the Target in Golden Valley that's close enough to Dad's school? But we've been around and around and around that Target so many times that I not only know where the book section is, but I can tell you a few of the titles that they probably still have on those shelves.
Ever since we had gone to the Valencia Town Center Mall about a month and a half ago, in which we got a few things from Hot Dog on a Stick in the food court, Mom wanted to try the veggie dog that I had last time. Plus, despite there not being a bookstore in this mall complex anymore (Borders closed about two months ago, I think, and when we moved to Santa Clarita, there was B. Dalton Booksellers in the mall, but that fizzled out, oh, I can't even remember what year that was. Five years ago, maybe?), there was still mall space to walk around, stores to peek in and then walk right by.
Dad dropped us off in front of the food court at the mall, and we spotted Hot Dog on a Stick, but first a table to sit at, to decide what we wanted to eat. The food court seemed reasonable. I could find a quesadilla at (I actually had to look this up just now on Google because I forgot. That's how memorable this mall is) Cabo Cabana Fresh Baja Grill, Meridith would most assuredly load up on the fried cheese things they have at Hot Dog on a Stick, and Mom could try that veggie dog, along with whatever else she might want.
But then we thought further. There was Five Guys Burgers and Fries in the outdoor Patios section of the mall. There was also Red Robin. And then there was Souplantation, the buffet of salads, soups, pastas, and breads. We discussed our possibilities, with Mom saying that she wouldn't mind not having that veggie dog if we found something else, and then we hit upon it: We hadn't been to Souplantation in years. Let's try it!
You may also know Souplantation as Sweet Tomatoes. Same company; it just depends on which area decides which name would be appropriate. Sweet Tomatoes wouldn't fit as well into this mall complex because despite some of the high-end stores, it's fairly low key. The Souplantation name blends right into that.
If I could live only on the blueberry muffins offered at Souplantation, I would. That's my definition of heaven in food, and it surprised me when I was going to get veggie pasta marinara from the pasta station that there was a guy at the counter in the back, scooping cornbread batter and plopping it into each square on a burned-all-to-hell baking tray. I didn't exactly expect custom-made bread by any means, and to keep up with what this business demands, no doubt the batter has to be made ahead of time, but with how those blueberry muffins tasted, like you'd never come down from that high? I figured either someone had to be making the batter in the back, or there is some caring soul who makes that batter elsewhere, who makes sure that there is as much love that can be put into it, as much that the blueberries can hold. I hope that's what it was, because there's no way these blueberry muffins could have tasted otherwise.
If at all possible, I don't like to go to a mall when crowds of people usually do, such as the weekend. Give me a late Thursday afternoon like that one, sitting in that sparsely populated Souplantation, eating my gargantuan salad (crumbled hard-boiled eggs, huge chunks of blue cheese, plain corkscrew pasta, and spinach leaves being some of the many highlights), completely at peace with the world, and impressed by the tomato-themed carpeting, all those tomatoes on all those vines. They stretched as vastly as the salad bar entrance did.
Soup is an interesting conceit at Souplantation, and maybe it depends on the location, but for the clam chowder they had, probably not. I know it's based on cost, that you can't find a clam chowder here that's full of clams, but there were more potato sticks than anything else in that chowder. Nevertheless, the pleasure was indeed in finding those pieces of clams, and then it was time to move on to yet another blueberry muffin. Only later did I try the brownie they have, and I liked that part of the inside was dark with chocolate. Not dark chocolate, but dark enough to almost be syrupy while still retaining the cake texture of it.
The only disappointing part of the experience, even though I didn't try it fully, was the macaroni and cheese. Put more life into it! The noodles looked so forlorn, the cheese liquidy. The only thing that saved it, when I got some for Meridith (She loves macaroni and cheese) was putting a large amount of sprinkle Parmesan cheese over it. But the macaroni and cheese should have been able to do that on its own, if the sauce had been thicker, if there had been as many cheeses as there was in the fettucine alfredo that I loved there. That was peace in pasta.
Done with dinner, we walked back to the mall, taking the escalator to the second floor to go out to the Patios section. Before that, a few minutes in Gamespot for Mom to find out how much the store would pay for Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance games we don't use anymore. There are so many DS games for so many interests! No wonder they'd only pay a dollar or two per game or a little more. The market is so saturated with them!
Then we stopped in the nearby Disney Store, as we always do, Disney fanatics that we are. I saw the advertisement they had for The Lion King in 3D coming to DVD, and was reminded that I desperately want to see it when it comes to theaters for a week, starting September 16. I also like that the villains of Disney movies are being acknowledged more and more, such as the Scar plush I saw, and one of my favorite pieces of movie trivia came to mind: After nearly shouting the line, "You won't get a sniff without me!" in the song "Be Prepared", Jeremy Irons blew out his voice, and voiceover master Jim Cummings sang the rest of the song. The change is most apparent in the line, "Be prepared, for the murkiest scam." I recognize that as Cummings because of his spoken-voice roles in The Road to El Dorado (as Cortez) and Shrek (as the head guard). Cummings also provided the singing voice of Rasputin in Anastasia, and it sounds exactly like Christopher Lloyd if he was singing, though he only provided the spoken-voice role.
Then to the Patios, to Williams-Sonoma for Meridith, for her to look at all the cooking supplies, and for the quick thought that someone had to have pissed somewhere in the store, because it smelled like that when we walked in, though it dissipated as we walked through the store. I was searching for any kind of mustard that wasn't yellow or brown or any of the standards that are usually found on supermarket shelves. I wanted to find something different, and I did, on a center display across from the door: A tarragon dijon mustard imported from France. Now I want to know more about France's take on mustard, that they seem to have a greater respect for it than we do here in the United States.
After Williams-Sonoma, there was nowhere else to go. Not Macy's. Not Sears. Not anywhere else because we know every part of that mall so well. There is no novelty. But right then, we found padded chairs next to a floor-to-ceiling window at The Coffee Bean, along with a long wooden table in between those chairs, and that's where we sat, I on the blue padded one, and Meridith directly across from me, and Mom next to her. There, I read almost to the end of Donuts: An American Passion by John T. Edge (The final book in his four-book series, and unfortunately the only one that suffered from clear writer's fatigue, as the enthusiasm and fascination that had been present in the three previous books felt muted), and enjoyed a pleasantly warm evening. It had been a long time since I had enjoyed any evening like this and though I don't like anything about this valley, and look forward to moving on, there are those little moments like that one that this valley provides that at least shows it wants some understanding. But it's buried underneath all the plastic bull that thoroughly dominates every street and shopping center. For one night, though, I found it. And for the first time, I found a sense of peace in this valley. Hopefully that's a sign that we'll be moving on soon.
There was an open house last night at La Mesa Junior High, and Dad naturally had to be there to explain to the parents his curriculum, take any questions, etc. So for Mom, Meridith and I, the question for us was where we'd want to go for over three hours. Could we really stand to go to the Walmart Supercenter on Carl Boyer Drive again for that length of time? What about the Target in Golden Valley that's close enough to Dad's school? But we've been around and around and around that Target so many times that I not only know where the book section is, but I can tell you a few of the titles that they probably still have on those shelves.
Ever since we had gone to the Valencia Town Center Mall about a month and a half ago, in which we got a few things from Hot Dog on a Stick in the food court, Mom wanted to try the veggie dog that I had last time. Plus, despite there not being a bookstore in this mall complex anymore (Borders closed about two months ago, I think, and when we moved to Santa Clarita, there was B. Dalton Booksellers in the mall, but that fizzled out, oh, I can't even remember what year that was. Five years ago, maybe?), there was still mall space to walk around, stores to peek in and then walk right by.
Dad dropped us off in front of the food court at the mall, and we spotted Hot Dog on a Stick, but first a table to sit at, to decide what we wanted to eat. The food court seemed reasonable. I could find a quesadilla at (I actually had to look this up just now on Google because I forgot. That's how memorable this mall is) Cabo Cabana Fresh Baja Grill, Meridith would most assuredly load up on the fried cheese things they have at Hot Dog on a Stick, and Mom could try that veggie dog, along with whatever else she might want.
But then we thought further. There was Five Guys Burgers and Fries in the outdoor Patios section of the mall. There was also Red Robin. And then there was Souplantation, the buffet of salads, soups, pastas, and breads. We discussed our possibilities, with Mom saying that she wouldn't mind not having that veggie dog if we found something else, and then we hit upon it: We hadn't been to Souplantation in years. Let's try it!
You may also know Souplantation as Sweet Tomatoes. Same company; it just depends on which area decides which name would be appropriate. Sweet Tomatoes wouldn't fit as well into this mall complex because despite some of the high-end stores, it's fairly low key. The Souplantation name blends right into that.
If I could live only on the blueberry muffins offered at Souplantation, I would. That's my definition of heaven in food, and it surprised me when I was going to get veggie pasta marinara from the pasta station that there was a guy at the counter in the back, scooping cornbread batter and plopping it into each square on a burned-all-to-hell baking tray. I didn't exactly expect custom-made bread by any means, and to keep up with what this business demands, no doubt the batter has to be made ahead of time, but with how those blueberry muffins tasted, like you'd never come down from that high? I figured either someone had to be making the batter in the back, or there is some caring soul who makes that batter elsewhere, who makes sure that there is as much love that can be put into it, as much that the blueberries can hold. I hope that's what it was, because there's no way these blueberry muffins could have tasted otherwise.
If at all possible, I don't like to go to a mall when crowds of people usually do, such as the weekend. Give me a late Thursday afternoon like that one, sitting in that sparsely populated Souplantation, eating my gargantuan salad (crumbled hard-boiled eggs, huge chunks of blue cheese, plain corkscrew pasta, and spinach leaves being some of the many highlights), completely at peace with the world, and impressed by the tomato-themed carpeting, all those tomatoes on all those vines. They stretched as vastly as the salad bar entrance did.
Soup is an interesting conceit at Souplantation, and maybe it depends on the location, but for the clam chowder they had, probably not. I know it's based on cost, that you can't find a clam chowder here that's full of clams, but there were more potato sticks than anything else in that chowder. Nevertheless, the pleasure was indeed in finding those pieces of clams, and then it was time to move on to yet another blueberry muffin. Only later did I try the brownie they have, and I liked that part of the inside was dark with chocolate. Not dark chocolate, but dark enough to almost be syrupy while still retaining the cake texture of it.
The only disappointing part of the experience, even though I didn't try it fully, was the macaroni and cheese. Put more life into it! The noodles looked so forlorn, the cheese liquidy. The only thing that saved it, when I got some for Meridith (She loves macaroni and cheese) was putting a large amount of sprinkle Parmesan cheese over it. But the macaroni and cheese should have been able to do that on its own, if the sauce had been thicker, if there had been as many cheeses as there was in the fettucine alfredo that I loved there. That was peace in pasta.
Done with dinner, we walked back to the mall, taking the escalator to the second floor to go out to the Patios section. Before that, a few minutes in Gamespot for Mom to find out how much the store would pay for Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance games we don't use anymore. There are so many DS games for so many interests! No wonder they'd only pay a dollar or two per game or a little more. The market is so saturated with them!
Then we stopped in the nearby Disney Store, as we always do, Disney fanatics that we are. I saw the advertisement they had for The Lion King in 3D coming to DVD, and was reminded that I desperately want to see it when it comes to theaters for a week, starting September 16. I also like that the villains of Disney movies are being acknowledged more and more, such as the Scar plush I saw, and one of my favorite pieces of movie trivia came to mind: After nearly shouting the line, "You won't get a sniff without me!" in the song "Be Prepared", Jeremy Irons blew out his voice, and voiceover master Jim Cummings sang the rest of the song. The change is most apparent in the line, "Be prepared, for the murkiest scam." I recognize that as Cummings because of his spoken-voice roles in The Road to El Dorado (as Cortez) and Shrek (as the head guard). Cummings also provided the singing voice of Rasputin in Anastasia, and it sounds exactly like Christopher Lloyd if he was singing, though he only provided the spoken-voice role.
Then to the Patios, to Williams-Sonoma for Meridith, for her to look at all the cooking supplies, and for the quick thought that someone had to have pissed somewhere in the store, because it smelled like that when we walked in, though it dissipated as we walked through the store. I was searching for any kind of mustard that wasn't yellow or brown or any of the standards that are usually found on supermarket shelves. I wanted to find something different, and I did, on a center display across from the door: A tarragon dijon mustard imported from France. Now I want to know more about France's take on mustard, that they seem to have a greater respect for it than we do here in the United States.
After Williams-Sonoma, there was nowhere else to go. Not Macy's. Not Sears. Not anywhere else because we know every part of that mall so well. There is no novelty. But right then, we found padded chairs next to a floor-to-ceiling window at The Coffee Bean, along with a long wooden table in between those chairs, and that's where we sat, I on the blue padded one, and Meridith directly across from me, and Mom next to her. There, I read almost to the end of Donuts: An American Passion by John T. Edge (The final book in his four-book series, and unfortunately the only one that suffered from clear writer's fatigue, as the enthusiasm and fascination that had been present in the three previous books felt muted), and enjoyed a pleasantly warm evening. It had been a long time since I had enjoyed any evening like this and though I don't like anything about this valley, and look forward to moving on, there are those little moments like that one that this valley provides that at least shows it wants some understanding. But it's buried underneath all the plastic bull that thoroughly dominates every street and shopping center. For one night, though, I found it. And for the first time, I found a sense of peace in this valley. Hopefully that's a sign that we'll be moving on soon.
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