Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Booked Non-Stop to Cleveland

So yeah: I really am here in Ohio, crashing at The Scribe's place (and swaddled in all manners of fleece blankies and layering shirts, as a tropical girl often is in this sort of weather), typing away on my Compaq while she's chasing down sources for last-minute stories. It's cold outside - blame the funnel cloud system over Missouri - and even Scribe's beloved Kittensley is hiding under the bed, bemoaning the weather. But I type on, having been up since 6:30 and running on decaf since.

Anyway, I post about The Cleve here because Scribe and I did a book exchange last night - I gave her a copy of The Tipping Point (to paraphrase the sign I saw at Powell's Books at the Portland airport: "What do you mean, you haven't read this yet?") and my copy of Honeymoon With My Brother to lend, and in turn she has both The Witch of Portobello (on loan from Coventry library) and Something Rotten on paperback.

I'm also still finishing From Bauhaus to Our House, which was the only book I was able to read while running from gate to gate (and snarfing all sorts of food along the way) at the airport. I'll admit that I was a Tom Wolfe newbie before this - even though I've had copies of The Right Stuff, Bonfire of the Vanities, and A Man in Full kicking about my shelves at various points in my life. It's a compact read, but I'm totally blown away by how Wolfe sets up - and knocks down - the Bauhaus renaissance in the United States (especially houses like these) as the impractical, imperfect dogma that it really is; it's a book that's as much about architecture as it really is about power, status, and intellectual snobbery. A perfect read, especially on an election year as mind-bending as the one we already have right now.


I also take back what I said about LAX having the best airport bookstore, too, after experiencing both Powell's at PDX and the notoriously huge airport bookstore at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. That's where I scored a copy of Ian McEwan's Saturday, which I forgot to read back home (I returned it to the Hawaii State Library so I wouldn't incur any more fines). I've saved this along with The Zahir (recommended highly by, of all people, my Dad), on my list of airplane reads for the trip back to Honolulu.

Finally, I don't think it would be right for me to write a Cleveland entry without mentioning a certain literary institution in the city...



That's right. Mac's Backs, I am so coming after you.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

NBLB Weekend Survey #8: Your Newsroom, or Mine?

Note from the readers: We'd like to apologize for the infrequency of these posts AGAIN - although, if you've been following our respective blogs, you'd realize that we can't be faulted completely for having a life, especially when a certain one of us is preparing to visit the other one in a matter of days, which warrants another blog entry altogether. In the meantime... enjoy.

Once upon a time, our readers sacrificed blood, sweat, tears and valuable REM cycles at the news altar - so much so that one of them (who majored in journalism) sold her soul to broadcasting gods and sponsors, while the other (who majored in English) took a job as an editor for a public-relations firm. Along the way, they met all sorts of characters that we swear we thought would never have existed in real life: for every mentor and sidekick who treated us with pure compassion, there were all sorts of mean beasties, deceptive lotharios, and just plain temperamental archetypes that would've been right at home in the imaginations of, say, Neil Gaiman or H.P. Lovecraft, to say the least of The Brothers Grimm.





You'd think that would've lured us away from reading books about the profession that we so simultaneously love and hate, but noooooo. Far from it, in fact - we've found that good writing sometimes has nothing to do with good journalism... and the world may actually be a better place for that.



The Scribe: It's a blood-sucking business, all right.



1) Favorite local newspaper columnist: Bias alert! Gen Suzuki, of course, for Honolulu. I have to also mention the totally awesome writer/editor behind Culture Jamming for that one weekly.;) Hometown fav: Jessica Zafra.


2) Least favorite local newspaper columnist: I'm really not into local gossip columns - especially in Manila - probably because I'm so out of it, I really don't recognize any of the names/insinuations to join in the fun!


3) Favorite nationally-syndicated columnist: Me so shallow: Ted Casablanca. If we're going to go by regular reading (since the late 90s), Casablanca's Awful Truth definitely fits the bill.


4) Least favorite nationally-syndicated columnist: I couldn't name one specifically - the more conservative ones, definitely make my teeth ache.


5) Favorite book written by a broadcast journalist: I cheat by mentioning fiction - Fangland by John Marks of 60 Minutes. Vampirism and broadcasting...quite a good read, I must say. I haven't read Baba Wawa's Audition yet, so I cannot offer an opinion (though I am DYING to learn more about The View cat fights from a primary source!).


6) Least favorite book written by a broadcast journalist: It's hard for me to slam any of these memoirs, because all the ones I've read so far have been so well-written.


7) Broadcast journo you wish would write a book, already: Christiane Amanpour needs to write her memoirs - she was always my broadcast idol.



8) Which existing comic strip would you like to see in compiled anthology form? House of Mao, from Singapore - I cannot find the shorter anthologies any more. I would love to buy the compilation if it exists.


9) Which comic strip series/artist would you like to put out of their misery? Garfield, I'm sorry...but it's just not funny anymore.


10) If you came across a book by a journo whose political affiliations were different from yours, what will actually motivate you to read that book? Curiosity, most definitely - I have no problem reading different points of view.






Meimei: Olberfan-girl Since 1997... and proud of it, sort of.



1) Favorite local newspaper columnist: Because I live in Honolulu (and can’t relate to the dailies in Manila any more – although Zafra and RJ Ledesma both get my vote): Charles Memminger of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and Wanda Adams of the Honolulu Advertiser.



2) Least favorite local newspaper columnist: I will go on the record and say that I have demanded the immediate retirement of Wayne Harada for the last 12 years. Seriously, the man’s not getting any younger – his writing has gotten very cliché as of late, and rumor has it that a few slebs that get bold-faced in his columns are getting tired of him, as well.


3) Favorite nationally-syndicated columnist: Ten years ago I would’ve answered Dave Barry, but his writing has gotten rusty lately. Roger Ebert, on the other hand, has been anything but rusty in spite of his health problems, and his film reviews are always fun to read.



4) Least favorite nationally-syndicated columnist: My list is pretty damn long for this, especially since the MidWeek does a great job of compiling all of my most hated journalist frenemies into one paper. Two of them in particular: Michelle Malkin (shut up, humorless conservative who brings shame to most Filipinos) and Amy Alkon (shut up, desperate but rapidly aging Carrie Bradshaw wannabe)




5) Favorite book written by a broadcast journalist: Before Keith Olbermann became a self-inflating, anti-conservative talking head, he and Dan Patrick co-wrote the hilarious ESPN tribute The Big Show, which I read obsessively as a college freshman. It’s too bad, then, that I have yet to read a SportsCenter tell-all that effectively measures up to this one… just as I have yet to meet an ESPN anchor team who measures up to the original Dan and Keith Show. (Although, considering my Hawaii bias, I actually think Neil Everett isn’t doing too bad – orange perma-tan notwithstanding.)





6) Least favorite book written by a broadcast journalist: Like the Scribe, my options are limited here – some of the broadcast-related stories I’ve read are pretty well-written. For the record, however, I doubt that Bill O’Reilly will ever be able to write anything more inventive than the infamous “Caribbean shower fantasy” (aka the "I'll rub you with my falafel" monologue) that was posted on The Smoking Gun.

7) Broadcast journo you wish would write a book, already: Keith and Anderson have already written theirs, and Scribe already nominated Christiane Amanpour… so I’m definitely waiting on Lisa Ling and Meredith Vieira to start telling their own sides of the story, since they were the classier parts of The View. Also, if Joe Moore finally comes through on his long-awaited threat to force himself into retirement, I would rather that he sit down and write his memoirs ASAP… because I’m betting that the old gorilla’s got a lot of bitchy dirt to spill when he really gets down to it.



8) Which existing comic strip would you like to see in compiled anthology form?As much as I like 9 Chickweed Lane, I would really love to see Brooke McEldowney compile the entire “Hallmarks of Felinity” sub-series into one single anthology. Never have I seen a comic-strip artist do so much with so little dialogue.




9) Which comic strip series/artist would you like to put out of their misery? You should’ve seen the dance of joy I recently did when Lynn Johnston of For Better or For Worse announced her retirement – it’ll be a matter of time before I never see those overly melodramatic Pattersons ever again. Now, if only Tom Tomorrow would do the same…


10) If you came across a book by a journo whose political affiliations were different from yours, what will actually motivate you to read that book? This is difficult for me, seeing as my politics are not as strongly defined as it should be – ironic, considering that I’ve become even more apolitical in spite of my religious background. I’m more likely to be let down by bad writing than bad politics, though, so I’ll be willing to put up with some carefully-written arguments.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Cute (Character) Overload, Book-to-Film Edition

Yeah, I haven't been able to write a decent review either (that's what you get when one's family is visiting to celebrate one's graduation ceremony) but since we're here, I might as well share some of my favorite clips from adaptations of my favorite books...





1) Sense & Sensibility, 2007-2008. Forget the fact that Willoughby looks too much like that weaselly Samm Levine for my taste, or that Marianne resembles the Clueless-era (and pre-destroyed-by-fame) Brittany Murphy. The scenery is fantastic, the acting is near pitch-perfect... and if you've ever wondered what on earth I ever saw in David Morrissey in spite of his role as a jackass in State of Play (not to mention his other craptastic roles - really, Basic Instinct 2 and The Reaping?!?!?!), start at the 4:30 mark when Marianne arrives at Delaford... and keep watching as he shows off his mad falconry skillz. He's definitely no Alan Rickman, but at least the perceived age difference between him and this Marianne isn't as squicky.






2) A Room with a View, 1986: Apparently the YouTube gods may also have realized that people hated the recent remake as much as Happy Scribe and I did... which probably explains why and how the spoilerrific videos from that hot mess disappeared from the site. (A pity, since I would've loved an endless HD loop of Rafe Spall-as-George giving Lucy her first kiss in the fields of Tuscany.) So please do enjoy this video of Helena Bonham Carter lying to Julian Sands' handsome face.





3) Shattered Glass, 2004. Okay, technically not a book adaptation - and this trailer is more like yet another excuse for me to post more proof of the hotness that is Peter Sarsgaard, as if I needed another one. Still, this trailer is a preview of what we have cooking for the upcoming Readers' Survey, which we'll also post late this weekend.

And speaking of excuses to post more proof of hotness...



Mr. Darcy says, "Kindly tell that walrus that I do, indeed, have his bucket. Thank you."

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Linkidy-Split: Books about wasting the hours away


Hey clockwatcher, if you're clicking onto this site to kill some time (why, thank you - we aim to amuse...even for five seconds) check out Slate's special Procrastination Issue, hot off the pixelated presses. There's a neato article on novels about wasting time - click it, and shave off a few more minutes 'til the end of the work day.

Meatier posts in the making...we promise. Really.


Friday, May 9, 2008

NBLB Weekend Survey #7: Books on a Plane!

Can't you tell we need a vacation? Here's the travel-themed NBLB survey of the week: Books on a Plane!




(Yep...sooo punnnyyyy...)


Mei: Give the Sudoku-toting dude a doll-sized drink!

1) Do you take too many (insert Sammy L.J. expletive here) books on a plane? Why? (Or why not?)
No, never. Two books in the hand-carry are too many already. This is coming from somebody who always ends up at the boarding gate with copies of Allure and Entertainment Weekly.

2) What are your travel reading rules? My main rule is to always pack something that I shouldn’t be afraid to put away if I can’t finish it – that way I won’t feel guilty if I have to put the book down in case I need to sleep, which I’d rather do on long flights anyway. I guess that’s what makes me so different from my Dad – his “airplane books” of choice are almost always suspense novels, which I have the compulsion to read from cover to cover without breaks. I also tend to carry a lot of serious books with me – for example, I read Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink while trekking through the Visayas with my family, because I knew nobody would “get it” well enough to read it over my shoulder.

3) Name one author/topic you will NEVER pack in your handcarry. If the book’s plot points center on something gruesome and macabre, it’s not going on the plane with me. Also, as much as I love my trashy romance novels, I can never bring myself to read them in-flight… unless I want to arrive at my destination crankier than usual.

4) What was your last impulse airport bookstore purchase?
I spent a near-fortune on children’s books on my way to the Philippines. It was a good investment, considering that I bought them for my cousins who don’t have a lot of access to quality children’s books back home.


5) Finish this sentence: If I see cute fellah next to me reading ___________, I will try to strike up a conversation about___________ over our doll-sized inflight alcohol rations. Here’s where I out myself as a geekazoid: If said doppelganger-of-Gerard Butler happens to be carrying a book with the words “edited by Will Shortz” on the cover, he better start buying me those $5 rations of booze! There’s nothing like bonding over the clues to the New York Times crossword puzzle. (Extra points if he gives me dibs over the Sudoku.)

6) After a trip, how many pounds (approximately) of your luggage can be blamed on book purchases?
Roughly two to five pounds – I usually just buy all sorts of omiyage anyway (especially from Trader Joe’s and Bath & Body Works), so some of those books won’t end up on my shelf. And the ones that do – well, my brother has a habit of giving me running and exercise books every time we see each other, so that counts.

7) Dream book browsing spot: If I ever visit New York, Boston, or London, I will make sure to visit one of those mom-and-pop bookstores that I keep seeing in the movies.


8) (Already visited) Best vacation bookstores ever (include locations if you can remember!): I remember seeing an English bookstore in Rome that made me swoon with delight – I just stumbled right into the door and went crazy. I also swear that LAX has the best airport bookstores, ever.

Also, for those of you visiting Hawaii: We have Borders (Ward Center and Waikiki) and B&N (Ala Moana and Kahala), but you will definitely want to visit the UH Manoa Bookstore for some serious Hawaiiana. [/shameless plug]


9) What sort of books do you buy as souvenirs?
I usually just buy books with tons of pictures in them – nothing too heavy (again, see #6), so it would be easy to browse through.

10) The tentative title of MY travel memoir would be: I Hope This Flight Exists. It’s based on an infamous Mei-family anecdote of a bratty tantrum that I threw as a teenager in Bali, when I couldn’t find our flight to Jakarta on the departure board at Denpasar International Airport. What can I say? I was very hormonal at that time. (And obviously not carrying any books with me to read – no wonder my Dad got me started on John Grisham the following summer.)


The Happy Scribe: Don't talk to me, I'm reading.

1) Do you take too many books on a plane? Why?
I really, really, really do try to bring only one book (I do!). I end up bringing three. Most of my flights are over ten hours, give or take a few stops. If I bring one, I finish it too quickly and am bored the rest of the trip. Two really should be enough, but then I almost always end up buying another during a stopover. Bad, bad, bad.


2) What are your travel reading rules?
Boredom is my biggest enemy on a long flight. The sounds of the plane machinery and so many people in an enclosed space already freak me out, so I need a very good story to distract me. Also, I don't like conversations with strangers next to my elbow - if my nose is in a book, DO NOT DISTURB. If I have to hear you snore, don't cut into well-written dialogue with inane small talk. (This is why I usually go for the aisle seat - I hate feeling boxed in. If my fellow passenger gets too chatty, I leave for the bathroom.) I also prefer fiction over non-fiction during flights - unless it's a travel memoir, I generally like the realms of imagination over reality during vacations.


3) Name one author/topic you will NEVER pack in your handcarry. Nothing that will make me cry. I'm already anti-social as a lone passenger. Sobbing also provokes unwanted conversations with strangers.

4) What was your last impulse airport bookstore purchase? Atonement by Ian McEwan at the MPLS airport, during what seemed like an endless walk to find my terminal.

5) Finish this sentence: If I see cute fellah next to me reading ___________, I will try to strike up a conversation about___________ over our doll-sized inflight alcohol rations.
The cute fellah would be my hubby - and he will be reading a photography magazine. We will be talking about Kittensley, as usual, over our $5 vodka tonics.

6) After a trip, how many pounds (approximately) of your luggage can be blamed on book purchases?
Ten pounds, easily...and if I'm lucky enough to keep it that low.


7) Dream book browsing spot: I really need to slow down the next time I browse through the little San Fran bookstores. I blame the rain and dim sum cravings - note to self: eat before book shopping. Actually, to have enough time to prowl new bookstores in any culturally alive city would be a dream come true.

8) Best vacation bookstores ever:
Oxford's book stores are so much fun. I tend to go into full book consumer mode when I visit any university-oriented town - Oberlin, Oxford, Berkeley...eyeluvem. Another great place to buy books: Singapore - I adore the mix of Asian and European authors, and cannot keep my hands off the Penguin books that don't make it to mainstream U.S. stores (a.k.a. my entire Jean Plaidy and L.M. Montgomery collections).


9) What sort of books do you buy as souvenirs? I love discovering the local humor - comic strip collections and funny books are a must! This is how I discovered the works of Malaysian cartoonist Lat, one of the most hilarious comics I've ever read. (The New Straits Times is a great place to discover Asian humorists.)

10) The tentative title of MY travel memoir would be: Babies On Board and Other Plane Truths. I seem to have the "seat near mother and child" sort of face. I don't think I've ever had a quiet flight - there always seems to be a hundred babies, all screaming in unison, during the longer plane rides I've had. Or toddlers who like to drool over my arm (ah, the flight to Sydney...the memories...). The parents seem to think it's all so very cute for their kids to grab my pony tail, or to burp over my food tray. It's so NOT.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Post Warmer: I can has vampire book?


I'm a big icanhascheezburger fan. Those delightfully-captioned furballs get me every time. I also love Cute Overload. Nothing like clicking on to photos of fuzzy Shetlands and fidgety fennecs to keep one going during a long work week (and this is definitely one of them, oui?).

Ah, but icanhascheezburger is the awesome, I must say.

Especially when one includes a black kitteh (with Kittensley white chest spot!) echoing my current guilty pleasure reads:

humorous pictures

A comparison of fictional bloodsuckers forthcoming - including the Barrow vamp series 30 Days of Night, which scared the crap out of me in movie form, despite Hartnett's wooden acting. Too toothy and messy, methinks...but the story is intriguing, which is why I have every single copy of Steve Niles' frozen bitefest on hold from the library. (I'm still trying to practice the best "these are for my nonexistent kid brother" look for my concerned librarian, who had to hand Laurell K. Hamilton's Incubus Dreams over without an audible "tsk." I think she's starting to worry about me.) Also on the boards:
David Sosnowski's hilarious Vamped, Elizabeth Kostova's Vlad Tepes quest The Historian, and the broadcast-inspired (why do I always feel the connections aren't so far-fetched?) Fangland, written by a former 60 minutes producer (and apparently also in film gestation, with Hilary Swank as the heroine...hrm). It's really interesting how many authors have tried to define and refine the vampire myth.

So stay tuned for biting commentary and a semi-historical breakdown of vamp lore. Are they humans with fangs and a bad blood habit? Or are they monsters who must be shot/staked/beheaded on sight? And what do you prefer - the glamorous undead...or down and dirty fangsiness?


Why do I have a feeling this upcoming post is going to majorly suck?

Sunday, May 4, 2008

NBLB Weekend Survey #6: A Drink With Your Book, Sir?

Now that both of us are way past the legal drinking age, we can now gleefully admit to enjoying our favorite books with our favorite tipples. Some of our beloved book-and-drink pairings are definitely unassailable (e.g. A Room with a View and a glass of Tuscan red); some are painfully obvious (e.g. Ulysses and a dram of absinthe with a Xanax chaser), and some... well, you obviously weren't there when Meimei tried to convince The Happy Scribe that Chianti tastes best with fava beans, even without the liver of one's preferred frenemy.

Here are some of our favorite combinations, along with some helpful serving suggestions and kind warnings in case you find yourself in the middle of a Hunter S. Thompson monologue....




Meimei: A good sip of whisky can't be that hard to find.

10 –
BOOK: Any of
Nick Joaquin’s work
DRINK:
San Miguel Pale Pilsen - ice cold in a bucket and straight from the bottle, just the way Nick himself would've liked it
SERVING SUGGESTION: Beef tenderloin tips sautéed with tons of garlic, salpicao-style (save the
exotic meat for the repeated viewings of Andrew Zimmern and Tony Bourdain instead)
NOTES: Joaquin was the closest thing the Philippines would get to their very own Hemingway – next to the post-war dandies who tried to rewrite the Western canon, he had an unmistakable swagger and a streak of originality – and his romanticism for Old Manila calls for something equally sophisticated, yet still meaty enough to keep the tunog kalye credibility.

9 –
BOOK: A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery O’Connor
DRINK:
Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Sour Mash
SERVING SUGGESTION: On the rocks, if you can’t handle drinking it straight up
NOTES: You would never expect good ol’ JD to be the kind of booze that goes with everything, but it does. It’s great in barbecue sauce, it puts the edge back in
chocolate… and, in combination with the iron-knuckle-in-Red Velvet prose of O’Connor’s stories, it may even bring you one step closer to Jesus.

8 –
BOOK: Thousand Cranes, by Yasunari Kawabata
DRINK:
Matcha or hojicha – no milk, lemon, or teabags
SERVING SUGGESTION: Try to see if the Japanese ceramics store near you will sell you a mug-size cup to serve the tea in; trust us, you’ll need it
NOTES: Thousand Cranes may be one of those books about cultural repression that will make you want to slap every single character in the face, but one vignette stands out: the discovery of a white tea cup with an unwashable lipstick stain, belonging to a character’s mistress. That one passage alone is enough to sum up the whole book: outwardly irredeemable, even in perfection.

7-
BOOK: Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar
DRINK:
Single malt scotch
SERVING SUGGESTION: Plate up some Ritz crackers on the side; avoid all cigarettes and tobacco products while reading
NOTES: John Grisham and Po Bronson could only dream of serving up a work of fiction that comes anywhere near this real-life tale of leveraged buyouts and corporate backstabbing, made even more delicious when you consider that none of the players in the story would even think of serving up revenge, or anything else, on a Ritz cracker.

6 and 5 –
BOOKS: Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child, by Noel Riley Fitch; and Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell
DRINK: This year’s
Beaujolais… or vermouth, if you’re feeling particularly frisky
SERVING SUGGESTION:
Coq au vin – a la Julia Child, of course – and some crusty bread
NOTES: You will definitely want to read these simultaneously. The critics are justified in taking
Julie Powell to task for her self-centeredness – seriously, love her, but she can be whiny enough to make Elizabeth Gilbert sound like Anne Frank – so you will need Fitch and her deliciously detailed passages from the scandalous life of the former Julia McWilliams. Who knew that the Amazonian TV chef we knew and loved was actually a former employee of the OSS… whose sensual and culinary awakenings collided with each other, upon her marriage to a sexy older man?

4 –
BOOK:
Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri
DRINK:
Mango lassi
SERVING SUGGESTION: Potato samosas and chutney
NOTES: Think Indian literature is too intimidating and rich for your palate? Start here with Jhumpa Lahiri’s little slices of subcontinental angst, served with tiny dashes of East Coast attitude.

3-
BOOK: Of Love and Shadows, by Isabel Allende
DRINK:
Chilean red wine, of course
SERVING SUGGESTION: The book’s meal of choice is
mondongo, the scent of which drives one character to proclaim that he can recognize it “from the bottom of the sea”… but if you’re not a big fan of tripe, a nice bowl of sancocho should do in a pinch.
NOTES: Despite the ominously romantic undertones of the title, there’s something comforting about Of Love and Shadows – especially when you read Allende’s descriptions of quiet family dinners and impromptu picnics, sandwiched between all the socio-political nastiness.

2 –
BOOK: High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby
DRINK:
Bass Pale Ale
SERVING SUGGESTION: Order takeout and play all your records at top volume
NOTES: Reading this book will not only give you a better appreciation for pop music and relationships, but will cause massive snorting of any liquid up your nose. I also would recommend reading the book before watching the movie, lest you find yourself plagued by people who use the words
“sonic death monkey” out of context.

1 –
BOOK: Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, by Dr. Seuss
DRINK:
Asti Spumante – chilled all day and served liberally in fluted glasses
SERVING SUGGESTION: Molten chocolate cakes and a MythBusters marathon on HDTV.
NOTES: Tradition from la Hacienda de Meimei dictates that this book should be passed on from generation to generation (or at least sibling to sibling) upon completion of any degree or education program that requires marching down a crowded aisle in a tasseled hat. Then again, any grown-up occasion that calls for readings of Dr. Seuss will always be a good occasion for a little Asti, and vice versa… as long as you make sure that all children under the age of 18 have been put to bed, or at least sequestered in their rooms with YouTube and a Nintendo DS.


The Happy Scribe: Green Swizzles and Cosmos for everyone!


10 -
BOOK: The Forsyte Saga, by John Galsworthy
DRINK: A glass of tawny port
SERVING SUGGESTION: With a nice cigar, in your well-appointed study filled with leatherbound books
NOTES: You can't read the Saga in big gulps - like port wine, small sips are required, the warm flavor rolled around the tongue. Imagine Soames Forsyte with a similar glass in hand, simmering over his wife's rejection.


9 -
BOOK: Any Jeeves and Wooster story by P.G. Wodehouse
DRINK: A Green Swizzle



2oz rum
1oz (green) crème de menthe
Juice of 1 lime
1tsp fine sugar or sugar syrup
2oz soda water
2 dashes bitters
Crushed ice
Swizzle stick


Save the soda water for later. Pour all other ingredients into a cocktail shaker. Play some 1920s tin pan alley piano as you shake it up. Top it off with soda water in a Tom Collins glass. Don't forget the swizzle stick.

SERVING SUGGESTION: Make sure you have Jeeves' hangover elixir ready in the morning.

NOTES: "If I ever marry and have a son, Green Swizzle Wooster is the name that will go down in the register." -- Bertie


8 -
BOOK: A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth
DRINK: A cuppa hot Darjeeling tea, brewed strong from leaves (not of that sachet sacrilege) with honey
SERVING SUGGESTION: On a beautiful tray, with sliced lemon pieces and saffron garam masala cookies.
NOTES: This 1471-page novel about the caste/class struggles in newly independent India requires a lot of stamina, hence the caffeine and cookies pairing. You won't regret taking a few afternoons off to find out if Lata gets the right boy - the descriptions are beautiful, like that perfect sip of bittersweet tea.

7 -
BOOK: Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, by Hayden Herrera
DRINK: A shot of Tequila Rose
SERVING SUGGESTION: Have paints and a blank canvas nearby
NOTES: Anyone who has seen the movie starring a hirsute Salma Hayek will remember scenes of the painter/feminist chugging tequila like water. Yet the artist herself was a beautiful mixture of toughness and gorgeous femininity - a color warrior clad in flowers. Watch for the burn down your throat amidst the strawberry sweetness of this shot...much like viewing a Kahlo painting.


6-
BOOK: The Griffin and Sabine Trilogy, by Nick Bantock
DRINK: Parrot Bay Breeze (with a straw) - coconut rum with pineapple and cranberry juice
SERVING SUGGESTION: You need one hand free to open up the letters in these beautiful books.
NOTES: Otherworldly romance requires an escapist drink.

5 -
BOOK: A Year in Provence, by Peter Mayle
DRINK: Pastis
SERVING SUGGESTION: He does describe a fox stew. May I suggest some yummy cheese and pate instead?
NOTES: Mayle fulfills a long-cherished fantasy: to live and write in the South of France. This light yellow drink, usually served in a squat glass, evokes that cliched vision of France - old men idling with glasses of star anise liqueur sparkling in the late afternoon sun, waiting their turn at petanque.

4 -
BOOK: Sex and the City, by Candace Bushnell
DRINK: A Cosmopolitan
SERVING SUGGESTION: Wearing cute shoes, surrounded by your besties
NOTES: Obviously, this is a toast to the upcoming film release of New York's favorite fictional columnist. Fashion and girls' nights out were never the same after Carrie and company dominated our screens.

3-
BOOK: Brain Droppings, by George Carlin
DRINK: Just a plain ole cuppa black coffee
SERVING SUGGESTION: No frills, no Starbucks frou-froofiness
NOTES: Warning - you may want to stay away from other irritating human beings after this book.

2-
BOOK: Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
DRINK: Currant wine
SERVING SUGGESTION: Don't mistake it for raspberry cordial.
NOTES: Even clean-cut Prince Edward Isle teens get drunk. Eyeloveet. One of the best coming-of-age stories ever.


1-
BOOK: Any of the Twisted series, by Jessica Zafra
DRINK: San Miguel Cerveza Negra
SERVING SUGGESTION: Dress up in your old alternative rock tribute t-shirt, wriggle into something flannel and forget about the Internet, ipods and SATC for a day or two. The earlier collections of Zafra's columns brings me back to my teen years. Her later works still keep me grounded. Good times. :)
NOTES: If you have any Pinoy rrrrock at hand, play it loud and proud.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Les Liaisons dangereuses: Revenge is best served cold, in a corset

This 1782 novel of scandalous lettres by Pierre Ambroise Choderlos de Laclos came to me in xeroxed fragments. I read every salacious word under the pretext of studying the Ancien Regime in my advanced French classes. I suspect my professeur thought it was a jolly good read anyways - and sought to break up the boredom of dissecting Rabelais and re-enacting Mollere (which, admittedly, wasn't boring at all) with the story of the famous literary libertine Valmont. I couldn't help feel a thrill of finally inhabiting a language I've studied for over a decade. Yes, there were constant journeys through my trusty Robert Micro - bought in Paris with a triumphant "hellyeah!" that shocked the chic bookseller - as well as a shit-ton of questions about certain archaic expressions.

Most people know the story via the 1988 film starring a deliciously evil Glenn Close and John Malkovich (though you should check out Valmont, a 1989 film starring Colin Firth as the oversexed aristo villain - deliciously camp!) - or through the teen drama version Cruel Intentions with post-Buffy Sarah Michelle Gellar and the preppy innocent, Reese Witherspoon. It's a tangle of calculated deductions orchestrated by the indomitable Marquise de Merteuil, who uses the rake Valmont to accomplish her fiendish plots. The fact that this story is still a viable screenplay vehicle to this day makes me think how clever de Laclos was as a social satirist. Hindsight made it an important reference work for the zealots of the French Revolution, but even at the time of its publication, even the most conservative members of Marie Antoinette's court took to disreputable characters like bees to honey.

La belle Marquise is always my favorite character - she leaps off the pages, stage, and screen as a strong, cultured woman despite her devilish machinations. She is always in control - until her downfall at the very end, the full devastation rarely brought to life in the glittering celluloid versions. She is the general of relationships - her strategies are mind-bogglingly heartless. There is no love here - it is action-reaction, a series of erotic formations designed to fulfill her ambitions. The Marquise's actions are pure Hell's fury from a woman scorned: she schemes for an innocent girl's ruin, just because the doe-like creature is about to marry her former lover. How awful! How cold! How deliciously decadent! This cold dish of revenge is served up with a series of plots carried out under the sheets. The intricacies are so delightfully Baroque, the descriptions like soft-lit photographs of Versailles in the afternoon light. These are aristocrats with too much money and time on their hands, with Marquise at the very helm of these cruel games of the heart.

However, I must say - I prefer her action to the malleability of the other characters. On my slappable list: the virgin-turned-wanton Cecile de Volanges and the prudish Madame de Tourvel. Maybe I just can't stand passive aggressive creatures - in fiction or real life. They make me want to scream at their simpering. Cecile and Marie are the good girls, but they never seem to have any of the great lines. They are pale female phantoms next to La Marquise - in modern times, they would be serving her coffee and walking her dogs while she takes over Wall Street, Washington AND Bryant Park. Ah...and there is her evil partner, Valmont, her glittering snake - the ultimate emotional vampire. He only grows weak when he falls for Marie - letting his heart take over the reins away from his calculating intellect. Ah - but what a waste! The convent girl and semi-virtuous wife doth protest too much, even in the original French. And the hapless Danceny reminds me of the calf-like Charles Hamilton in Gone with the Wind, one of my top ten "goodie-goodie" idiots of all time.

Like any translation, there are certain subtle nuances best read in the original language. However, it would do your library (and certainly your historical collection) a load of good to have this cautionary tale built on lace, lies, and forbidden love in your shelves. Valmont as sexual mercenary is an interesting paradox. Making war through love didn't die at the guillotine - it merely festered into other incarnations. There is a Marquise in all of us, if we are not careful...just as there is a stupid Cecile or a hopeless Marie. While this is a tale of revenge, constant re-readings and re-watchings of the various adaptions has taught me one thing: you have to fall in love with your heart, soul AND mind. It is a dangerous liaison without trust, understanding, and mutual respect.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Follow This Meme: LibraryThing's List of106 Unread Books


From a meme thread started by LibraryThing. The rules: Bold what you have read and italicize what you didn't finish. There was something about striking through a book you hated...but I just can't HATE a book totally...unless it was a math textbook.




Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and punishment
Catch-22
One hundred years of solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The name of the rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A tale of two cities
The brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The time traveler's wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The kite runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great expectations
American gods
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius
Atlas shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury tales
The historian : a novel
A portrait of the artist as a young man
Love in the time of cholera
Brave new world
The Fountainhead
Foucault's pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A clockwork orange
Anansi boys
The once and future king
The grapes of wrath
The poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One flew over the cuckoo's nest
To the lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's travels
Les misérables
The corrections
The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Dune
The prince
The sound and the fury
Angela's ashes : a memoir
The god of small things
A people's history of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A confederacy of dunces
A short history of nearly everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
The mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud atlas
The confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit
In cold blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers