esprit de l'escalier

The Resurgence of the Undead

The undead are everywhere these days - vampires are all over television, movie screens, and book covers. Zombies are having a moment in the sun, as it were, too. Jane Austen got ravaged by a zombie hoard, as did America in Zombieland. As someone who read Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles at a probably too young age and who was an early fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I get the appeal of vampires. It's sex, right? I mean, yes, good vs. evil, etc. But when it boils down to it, vampires are about sex. But I never really got zombies.

Now, having recently finished reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and recently seen Zombieland, I think I get it. Zombies seem to be about gore. I might be missing something, as I am not well versed in zombie fiction. In fact, I think the first real zombie movie I've ever seen was Shaun of the Dead, but it remains my favorite. All three of these examples also deal with the silliness of the undead. Sure they are trying to eat your brains, but zombies are pretty silly with their shuffled walking and moaning. And maybe zombies are just a way of giving humans an opportunity to kick some ass.

I enjoyed Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, although it was pretty silly in and of itself. In this alternate reality, the Bennett girls have been trained in the deadly arts by their father and even went to China to train. (Although this shows their social status, as the true elite go to Japan to study - something Elizabeth is derided for throughout the book.) I especially liked the slow demise of poor Charlotte, and the understandable way that throughout the story people would politely vomit into handkerchiefs and napkins. It was never explained, but I assumed that with the undead about, good society will ignore the occasional queasiness.

I also thought Zombieland was good fun. Gory, yes, but funny and entertaining. The characters are known by their hometowns, and everyone in the theater shouted with glee when Jesse Eisenberg's character said he was from Columbus, Ohio (where we were all watching it). Of course, the feeling was slightly different when we heard our hometown's fate. I really like Eisenberg as an actor, but I felt like some of the early scenes were written for Michael Cera. Last month, Gawker joked about who the next "hoodie heartthrob" would be after Cera, and from some of this movie I can see why. I think I am not alone in getting tired of seeing stereotypical Michael Cera characters. 

All in all, though, Zombieland is a fun ride, even if there isn't much of a plot. I liked Columbus's rules for surviving zombies and they were a nice line that connected everything. Woody Harrelson is great and the cameo by Bill Murray is hilarious. It seems he has yet to outstay his welcome.

Waiting for good news

(Ominous title, no? It's not like that, I swear.)

I have recently returned to my old bookworm ways. Grad school severely hindered my reading for pleasure habits. When I was living in Chicago and commuting by rail, I was in a reader's heaven. I had a solid two hours of daily reading to myself, if I could tune out the huddle masses in the train car. (Which, of course, any seasoned commuter via public transport can do.)

Reading for school and commuting by car almost destroyed my pleasure reading. About once a quarter, but probably less, I would gorge myself on a novel, putting off my homework and reading into the night. I would never quite regret it, although those binges always set me back. Since regaining my autonomy, I have been a little slow to return to my reading. Lately, though, I have rediscovered my voracious reading appetite, as evidenced by the rotating stack of books next to my bed.

I am currently house/cat sitting for friends of my parents and I took a lazy Sunday on their couch and read Kate Atkinson's latest, When Will There Be Good News? (Whose title I'm riffing on for this post.) It reunites her readers with her reluctant private detective, Jackson Brodie. He first turned up in Case Histories, the first Atkinson I read. This is his third book, and like the others, it is in no way a standard private eye story. People are lost and sought, but it feels less boxed in by the standard genre. Her Brodie books feel less like mysteries (though they are), and more like excellent stories that involve a mystery of some sort. They feel more like life than an Agatha Christie or a Raymond Chandler.

Her characters are all survivors of something tragic, an accident or a horrific murder. These stories are about moving forward through even more loss. Bad, nasty, sometimes random things happen to good people, but Atkinson tells us about the strength people find to move forward (or not). She does it all the while showing us the humor and absurdity in everyday life. Her books, especially the Jackson Brodie ones, are hard to put down. They always include several parallel stories lines end that up colliding in a satisfying way.

I really love Atkinson as a writer. Her voice is distinctively feminine and British. I've also read her first book, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, and Human Croquet, both of which employ a magical realist touch. I would suggest all of them.

Hiding in the Spotlight

I wake up to NPR in the mornings. On the weekends, if I hear something interesting, I'll let it play instead of hitting snooze and slowly wake up, listening to a story unfold. Saturday I did this with an interview with Diane Rehm. (My favorite part was her story about how Julia Child responded to her question about how Child keeps up her energy. Child quipped she ate well, "red meat and gin.")

I left the radio playing and bolted awake with the next story, Hiding In Spotlight. Not only was the story a good one, but the interview was with my good friend Aimee's Dad and Grandmother, Greg and Zhanna Dawson.

Aimee's Grandmother and her great aunt escaped Nazi death marches in the Ukraine in 1941. Both were gifted musicians; Zhanna was a piano prodigy. They changed their names and were presumed dead. (In fact their names are included on walls of the dead in Israel and Ukraine.) They survived much of the war by playing music, and often for German soldiers. Scott Simon, who was interviewing them, asked her if playing for the Nazis scared her. Her response was interesting. She said she was more afraid of people she knew recognizing her than she was the soldiers.

Eventually they were able to get to America. Zhanna went to Julliard and ended up teaching at Indiana University. (Which is where I met Aimee.)

Aimee's Dad, Greg, is a columnist with the Orlando Sentinel. He recently published a book about Zhanna's escape and life during the war. The NPR piece has reminded me that I have the time now to read it and should do so. Listen to the interview (and read an excerpt) here. More information about the book here. Buy it here.

Heart (part 1)

The weather continues to be wacko around here, but I'm looking forward to the purported 70 degree weather tomorrow. Has anyone else been watching Flight of the Conchords this season? Because I *love* the song above. It's from an episode directed by Michel Gondry. How could I not love it?

I happened to catch Writer's Almanac on Tuesday, just in time to hear the poem "Late Winter Rains" by Amber Coverdale Sumrall. Lance has been talking this week about reading aloud, and I had just heard this poem, which is gorgeous by the way. I encourage a listen. I think poetry should be heard.

Not only is the weather getting better, but I've got three trips ahead of me. I'm off to Charleston over my break with some old friends. I can't wait for a break from school, hanging out by the beach - even if it's cold - and taking some photographs. In early April I'm going to Chicago to see Andrew Bird with Natasha. Over my birthday I'm heading to Minneapolis for a week to visit family and go to a professional conference. It just so happens that M. Ward is playing and I'm going to meet up with a friend/old professor to see the show. I cannot wait. 

As an extra treat, here's an awesome video that Bird did with my favorite post-apocalyptic marching band, Mucca Pazza. God does this video make me miss the Hideout.

Andrew Bird with Mucca Pazza - "Fitz & The Dizzyspells”

More things that I am loving Monday. Have a good weekend!

Poetry for you

My ex-roommate, the lovely Miss Natasha, is trying to pull the strings around here. Which is just as well, since I have been remiss in my blogging the past week or so. (I am blogging in such fits and starts lately, I apologize. I am spending more time on Flickr, and I invite you there to see some photos.)

She tells me to add this project to my blog, so I shall.  It fits in nicely with our celebration of Robert Burns' birthday (which was this weekend - his birthday not the celebration, our celebration is happening this Saturday).  Natasha is a poetry enthusiast, which is an excellent quality in a friend, because she is always sending me lovely gifts via email.  This project is called American Life in Poetry and was initiated by former Poet Laureate Ted Kooser.  It's sort of like The Writer's Almanac for newspapers. American Life in Poetry is a weekly newspaper column featuring a contemporary poet, with an introduction by Kooser.  It is supported by the Poetry Foundation and the Library of Congress.

The archived poems can be found here.  Treat yourself to a little poetry today.

Burns Night is coming up

A Winter Night

by Robert Burns

When biting Boreas, fell and doure,

Sharp shivers thro' the leafless bow'r;

When Phoebus gies a short-liv'd glow'r,

         Far south the lift,

Dim-dark'ning thro' the flaky show'r,

         Or whirling drift:

Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,

Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked,

While burns, wi' snawy wreeths upchoked,

         Wild-eddying swirl,

Or thro' the mining outlet bocked,

         Down headlong hurl.

List'ning, the doors an' winnocks rattle,

I thought me on the ourie cattle,

Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle

         O' winter war,

And thro' the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle,

         Beneath a scar.

Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing!

That, in the merry months o' spring,

Delighted me to hear thee sing,

         What comes o' thee?

Whare wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing

         An' close thy e'e?

Ev'n you on murd'ring errands toil'd,

Lone from your savage homes exil'd,

The blood-stain'd roost, and sheep-cote spoil'd

         My heart forgets,

While pityless the tempest wild

         Sore on you beats.

A series of quotations, tenuously related

When I was in high school I kept a quote journal. It was a blue spiral notebook, half-sized. I collected quotes and wrote them in clear print in gelly roll pens of orange, sparkly purple, and green. I would turn to this journal all the time - for birthday cards, yearbook notes, etc.  I don't know where this book is now, probably in my storage unit with the rest of my stuff.  The quotes here are new quotes, to me, but they made me miss my little notebook today.

Anyway, here are some quotes, tenuously related.  My first quote came to me on my iGoogle homepage, and it's from Robertson Davies, a personal favorite:

Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.

Isn't that a good quote?  It may just be glandular!  Then I started a new book during lunch, about the fictionalization of the writer's hometown.  In the Author's Note, Laura Groff quotes James Fenimore Cooper, who shared her real hometown:

An interesting fiction... however paradoxical the assertion may appear... addresses our love of truth - not the mere love of facts expressed by true names and dates, but the love of that higher truth, the truth of nature and of principles, which is a primitive law of human mind.

Isn't that why we read fiction?  Because it gets to those higher truths of being human?  Groff goes on to say, "In the end, fiction is the craft of telling truth through lies."  See!  I told you.

In the end I was reminded of Mr. Davies again, "The love of truth lies at the heart of much humor."

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Ratty and Mole at 100

The Christmas season makes me think of both friends and family. Auld Lang Syne comes to mind - making me feel slightly maudlin (in the best way possible) as I think on good times past.  The year is ending, it's cold, and there are reunions with old friends and family members.  It felt fitting to read last week that Kenneth Graeme's masterpiece, The Wind in the Willows, has turned 100.

The Wind in the Willows was not a childhood favorite for me.  My Uncle Rick read it to my siblings, cousins and me when I was a kid.  I remembered Toad's wild adventures, but I think he was too manic for me and I never revisited it.  About five years ago I was listening to a lot of audiobooks and listened to the Terry Jones' narrated version on a solo road trip.  I was surprised to find not only the beautiful prose, but the lovely tale of friendship between the unlikely pair of Ratty and Mole.

The fifth chapter had me in tears.  There is something poignant about how Ratty responds to Mole's need to be home, once he realizes that he's been a bit of an ass in regards to his friend's feelings.  It hit close to home - I was living with one of my best friends at the time and it seemed to encapsulate a back and forth between friends perfectly.

The weary Mole also was glad to turn in without delay, and soon had his head on his pillow, in great joy and contentment. But ere he closed his eyes he let them wander round his old room, mellow in the glow of the firelight that played or rested on familiar and friendly things which had long been unconsciously a part of him, and now smilingly received him back, without rancour. He was now in just the frame of mind that the tactful Rat had quietly worked to bring about in him. He saw clearly how plain and simple -- how narrow, even -- it all was; but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him, and the special value of some such anchorage in one's existence. He did not at all want to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces, to turn his back on sun and air and all they offered him and creep home and stay there; the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage. But it was good to think he had this to come back to; this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.

Anyway, the holidays are a perfect time to revisit with old friends - both real and literary.  Here's to friends and new adventures in the next year.

Power is still out

This post is being brought to you via my dad's blackberry, and I accidentally just erased what I had written. Boo. We are still without power following a howling wind storm Sunday. Most likely it will remain out til this weekend. We are much luckier than Ike's true victims down south. I am just hazarding dressing in the dark, with the spectre of Michael Kors chiding my outfits. Not to mention breaking into my scheduled posts of pie and car trouble in Montana.

Today marks the release of A Year of Mornings: 3191 Miles Apart, a book I have been eagerly awaiting for some time. I fell instantly in love with Mav and Stephanie's collaboration when it started (I am such a fan of both). In her introduction, Stephanie writes that she hopes their project will "engender a culture of noticing." I have a feeling they have, with the many lovely photo and art collaborations that have sprung in their wake. Maria said in her intro that they "have made a small, humble comment on the human condition, on the daily exercise of being human." I agree with her wholeheartedly. For a long time I have been interested in how communties are fostered on the internet, especially those involving the artistic process, and I feel very blessed that they have shared their observations and insights with the world.

Check the ladies out on Martha Stewart tonight. I would be watching if we had power. Check out 3191 for their latest photos. Buy the book. See the quiet beauty in your everyday.

(Addendum: I just finished looking over the whole book and I love how they have the pairings clustered. They also included some comments from readers (including a comment from me - how crazy!). Their website is http://3191.visualblogging.com.

Quick question

I'm in the middle of an unbelievable case of school paper-related paralysis.  I have a twenty pager due tomorrow and I am not as far as I should be, given it's 7pm the day before it's due.  What am I doing here?   I have a quick question.

I need some book suggestions for my trip.  I'm hoping for some things that are related to the places I'll be visiting.  I'm thinking Vonnegut (I mean, I'm going to be in Dresden, so Slaughterhouse-Five seems a perfect fit), but besides that I'm stuck.  I'll be in Scotland, Ireland, Germany (for the longest) and the Netherlands.  Please help.  And send good thoughts to my stupid, procrastinating self.