Help Me

One thing I've enjoyed about being a grown up is recapturing certain elements of my childhood. The great thing about being an adult is that when you see a toy in the store that you want, you don't necessarily have to wait until Christmas to get it. (You might have to wait for your wife's permission but that's another story.) And I feel pretty fortunate. My tastes may be juvenile but I bet Suzanne prefers that I occasionally buy a three dollar comic book or a ten dollar action figure than spend a hundred bucks and half of a Saturday on the golf course. It's probably better for everyone around that I'm happy to buy my occasional graphic design book rather than needing to refurbish a Mustang from the frame up.

I'm digressing.

Anyway, one thing I've done in the last several years is try to collect all the really important books from my childhood - things that I read that moved me, stayed with me, entertained me, contributed to my inner world, etc. So far, I've had pretty good luck. One way or another, I've gotten copies of Simple Pictures Are Best, The Giant Jam Sandwich, Once Upon A Pirate Ship, The Secret Clubhouse, Enemies of the Secret Clubhouse, Something Queer Is Going On, and, the greatest find of them all, Andrew Henry's Meadow. I found it for ten cents at a Deseret Industries in Boise. It was like light from Heaven was pouring down onto that dirty, little bookshelf that day.

Anyway, one book continues to elude me. The problem is that I can't remember the title. I know the premise and basic storyline and can even still see some of the illustrations in my head - but I don't know what it's called. I'm sure it's out there and that I could probably buy a copy on Ebay for sixty cents - IF ONLY I KNEW THE TITLE!

I do remember that it was an adventure novel targeted at your average boy from the 1950s or 60s. (That's how up to date my grade school library was.) It had occasional spot illustrations but was a novel rather than a picture book. As I recall, it was about a young man who goes to spend the summer with his grandparents. (I know. That only narrows it down to every young adult novel ever written, right?) They live near a swamp/bayou and the boy spends his days taking his pole skiff out around the overgrown corridors of the swamp. I remember specifically a passage about how, if a snake appeared on a low-hanging branch above him, he'd slap the surface of the water with his pole and make a bunch of splashing noises and, for whatever reason, that would make the snake drop out of the tree and into the water. Not sure if that's true or if it works but, at the time (third or fourth grade), I filed it away for future reference. Thought it might come in handy later.

As the boy is exploring the swamp one day, he comes across a corridor formed by cypress trees, moss, vines, etc. He follows it and it turns out to be a portal to past where a tribe of Native Americans who have had no contact with the modern world live. He befriends one of the Indians who is roughly his age and. . . I can't remember after that. It seems like that tribe is somehow threatened by the modern world. I can't remember who or what but it seems like, in the end, the boy has to leave and never go back. Something like that.

Anyway, I've searched it using general terms on Google, asked about it on literature listservs, and even gone so far as to call the library at Hillcrest Elementary in American Falls, Idaho hoping that one of the librarians might recognize what I was talking about.

No luck.

So what about it, my loyal readers? Does this story ring a bell with anyone? Do you know someone who's a kid's lit expert who could help me track it down? Is it sitting on your bookshelf even as you read this? Probably not - but I thought I'd take a stab.

The Spirit Revisited

A couple of months ago I wrote a very long post about Will Eisner's comic book character The Spirit and the upcoming movie adaptation by Frank Miller. Many people (my mother and wife, especially) complained about the length of the post and about how "boring" it was.

Well, thanks to the magic of Netflix, I've finally seen the film version of The Spirit and I have some things to say about. However, partly due to prior complaints and partly due to the fact that I can say what I mean in very few words and still get the gist of it across, I'll be brief:



It's really stupid. Don't spend money to see it. Don't waste precious time watching it for free.

Simple enough?

Audrey

Some people get beauty.


Some people get talent.


Some people get goodness.


But how often do all those traits make themselves apparent in one person?

I watched Roman Holiday the other night and was dazed with pleasure at how much fun it is, how funny it is, and what a stunning person Audrey Hepburn was. Of course, her physical beauty was always apparent but I never knew how stinking funny she was. I laughed out loud at her delivery of the simplest of lines in Roman Holiday more than once. Her near-silent performance in the final scenes of the movie show she wasn't just a comedienne either. The fact that she dedicated her dedicated almost half of her life to helping and comforting some of the most underprivileged and forgotten people in the world demonstrates that her beauty wasn't just external.

So let's hear it for Audrey Hepburn, one of the world's most beautiful women, inside and out.

Three

Yes, three truly is the magic number. Observe:


Daughter #1


Daughter #2


Daughter #3

Yep, what you are looking at are the lady bits of the future Miss Brown. I know it doesn't look like much but if you know what to look for, it's pretty obvious we've got another female on the way. We got an ultrasound today and got the happy news. I'm excited. Although it further outnumbers me in my own home, daughters are great and I wouldn't trade them for anything. (I grew up with three brothers and no sisters. I've kind of already had the loud, climbing-on-everything, jumping-off-of-everything, destroy-everything-in-sight experience.) Anyway, the doctors made it apparent that they will be checking and monitoring Suzy extensively so we can avoid another scary, emergency c-section and that was comforting. (Although I'm not sure Suzy's crazy about getting the Big Brother treatment when it involves her lady bits, if you know what I'm saying. Still, better safe than sorry.)

Anyway, yay for us.

Baby and Babes.

Day after tomorrow, Suzanne and I will travel to Peoria for a morning of tests and scans to make sure all is well with our little sea monkey. I've taken to calling him/her Peach Baby after an animated short from the LDS Film Festival that I liked a lot. Maryn and Avery just refer to their future sibling as Baby X. (When they pray for the baby's continued good health at night, they ask, "And please bless Baby X." It makes them giggle every time.) I haven't heard Suzanne give the baby a nickname yet. Once Peach is out, she'll have all manner of food-related pet names though. For some reason, Suze always refers to our kids as food: Chicken, peanut, peanut butter, marshmallow, etc. I think it's hilarious. It's probably fitting because when the babies first get all chubby and rolly poly, I kinda want to eat 'em, you know? You just want to chew on their chubby little bodies. Maybe that's just a parental cannibalism thing. Maybe it's just me (and Suzanne).

Anyway, we'll go get the tests done, eat lunch at Qdoba no doubt, and then make it back in time to be home for the girls when they're through with school. A busy day - but it's supposed to be sunny and 72 so I'm looking forward to it.



I watched A Star Is Born and, while I don't "love it like a person" they way Tracy Medley does, I do think it's very good. Judy Garland just had a way of simultaneously conveying vulnerability and strength, optimism and fear in this really piercing, evocative way. James Mason couldn't have been better cast. He was the perfect combo of worn good looks, world weariness, and internal sadness. The moment late in the movie when he overhears Esther planning on ending her career for his sake is heartbreaking and every bit as visceral and powerful as anything any actor has done on screen, I think.

Visually, it's a beautiful film. Director George Cukor uses Technicolor to its fullest, giving everything a gorgeous, enameled sheen. Thematically, it shares some of the poison and anger of Sunset Boulevard, another film about the cutthroat inner workings of Hollywood. A Star Is Born isn't as baroque as Sunset Boulevard but, in many ways, it's a sharper knife. Rather than the overdone silliness of Norma Desmond, it gives us characters closer to reality and a climax that's more tragic than lurid.



I also watched The Postman Always Rings Twice with John Garfield and Lana Turner. I was interested in it because its plot and characters are often compared to those of my favorite noir, Double Indemnity. The stories are very similar - a dissatisfied wife using her sexuality to dupe a guy into killing her husband, a love/hate relationship with her dupe, betrayal, things ending badly, etc. Having seen them both, I still prefer Double Indemnity. Fred MacMurray is more interesting because of his outer appearance of being a regular joe and his inner moral emptiness. John Garfield is good - but he's a good-for-nothing drifter from the start. Not a lot of mystery there, you know? And yes, I know I've said it before and I'm verging on obsessive weirdness - but Lana Turner is no Barbara Stanwyck. She doesn't have the acting chops. She's effectively venal and lustful and all that but she just doesn't have the dramatic oomph that Stanwyck does. Anyway, it's worth seeing. If nothing else, Hume Cronyn makes an awesome oily, manipulative lawyer who gets Turner off of a murder charge toward the end of the movie. I only know Cronyn from his later work as a cute, old man. I didn't know he had snappy and crooked in him too.



I'm headed home early today so maybe I'll get to Roman Holiday before the results show of Dancing With The Stars.

Someone Can Get Me This T-shirt For My Next Birthday

Me At A Recent Party

toothpastefordinner.com

Update

This week is skipping along quickly. The semester is drawing to an end and I spend every day busily trying to make sure my students are getting what they need before the bitter end. We're moving into fiction workshop time for my creative writing course, my 1001 students are working on their final essay, and my 1002 students are halfway through a big research project. Things are clipping along.

Evenings are always filled with tasty dinners, ballet for the girls, encouraging Maryn to do her math homework, listening to Avery read, showers for the girls, and high quality television. Seriously, I would get so much more homework done at decent hours of the day if I wasn't powerless to pull myself away from Dancing With The Stars and Lost. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings between 7-9 are pretty much a loss for me in terms of being a productive human being.

This is not to say I'm not making progress because I am. I'm working through Andrew Dickos's Street With No Name: A History of American Film Noir and am enjoying it a lot. Dickos is a good writer and an insightful scholar. So not only does he have interesting ideas, he presents them in a way that's accessible and fun to read. I'm happily plowing through that and will move on to the smaller but less interesting Film Genres next week.



I'm watching two films a week because I'm trying to maintain a more attainable, reasonable schedule. If I have three movies that I feel I ABSOLUTELY MUST WATCH this week, I probably won't watch any. If I have two, I'm more likely to do it. On the schedule for this week are A Star Is Born with Judy Garland and the Busby Berkeley-choreographed Gold Diggers of 1937. Next week will begin with Roman Holiday featuring the granite-like Gregory Peck and the eternally lovely Audrey Hepburn.



Now, back to DWTS. It seems that Lil' Kim is more of a competitor than I originally thought. Obviously, the fact that she's with Derek is a big advantage. He's easily the best, most creative male choreographer on the show and he can do a lot with a little. The fact that she's pretty talented and is a big performer doesn't hurt either. For a while, I thought it was pretty much just going to be between the two nobodies - Frenchy French Frenchman Gille and Celebrity Dumpee Melissa. Shawn, that little barrel of muscle, is a strong contender as well, of course, but I never really considered Lil' Kim. It seems like, depending on the mood, the shiny mirror ball could go to any one of those four. One thing is for sure - we're all better off without Steve-O. He tried and I admire him for it but it's more comfortable to not have to watch him anymore. I think Ty may be next.



As for Lost, could the last two episodes been any better? More of Ben's complicated history last week and this week, insight into Miles Straum, the angriest ghost whisperer in town? I've loved it.

Things I Have Loved:
Ben getting the smackdown from Desmond.
Hurley's effort to write the Empire Strikes Back screenplay.
The uber-mysterious line "Do you know what lies in the shadow of the statue?"
Hurley's line: "Face it, dude. Ewoks suck."
Confirming that Dr. Candle is Miles's dad.
Seeing Ben "call" Smokey through the mystery sump pump in his basement.



It's all been good, people. All of it. (Except for the cheesiness of the Smokey-flashback sequence in the basement of the temple. Is that really the best they could do?)

Anyway, as ever, I can't wait for next week.

They Can't All Be Good

Sometimes in my quest to be a well-read, well-viewed Film Studies student, I come across a big, fat turkey of a movie. Sometimes these turkeys are called The Day The Earth Stood Still. Sometimes they're called Gilda. And sometimes they're called The Naked Spur and they star Jimmy Stewart.



Fittingly, Jimmy Stewart's character, Howard Kemp, gets shot in the leg and has to hobble for some of the movie. It's fitting because the movie also is LAME.

Snoooze. Please, Jimmy Stewart just doesn't have the tough guy gene in him. The supersaturated technicolor makes the whole film look as though it was colored with a set of Crayola 64. Ralph Meeker, so cool and tough in Kiss Me Deadly, smiles like a goofy, stupid goon through the whole thing. And Janet Leigh - the more I see of her, the more I realize she's a pretty bad actress.

All in all, my friends - a dud. Pass it over in favor of something that doesn't smack of backlot cheese.

In Case You Were Wondering, The Fox Network Is Indeed A Tool Of Satan

See the evidence here.

The Paininthebuttock Oath

Everyone has their thing, right? The thing that sets them off and makes them irrationally, inexplicably angry? You know what I'm talking about. For some people, it's racism and injustice. For others, it's neglect and carelessness. For me, it's medical office staffers. That's right, the woman behind the sliding glass window that hands you the clipboard and takes your co-pay. That's her. She and her ilk are the evil force in the universe that fill me with rageful raging rage. I hate 'em.

Why, you might ask, am I pathologically angry at people who are just trying to do their job? It probably all stems back to when I was being treated for cancer. I'd never been appreciably sick in my life to that point and was feeling a little vulnerable and frightened at the time. I expected my doctors and all their helpers to be angels of mercy. I don't know if I had unrealistically high expectations or if my doctor and his staff just really sucked canal water.

All I know for sure is that when Suzanne and I were sitting out in the waiting room with half a dozen other people, eagerly awaiting the results of the biopsy of my recently removed man-bit, I could clearly and distinctly hear the office girl on the phone with the pathology department.

"Yeah, I'm calling about Mark Brown's path report."
Pause.
"Mark Brown. B-r-o-w-n."
Pause.
"It was a left orchiectomy."
Pause.
"You can't?"
Pause.
"You can't find his testicle?"
She puts her hand over the receiver at that point and says to the other woman behind the desk, "Path can't find this guy's testicle. Can you believe that?"

All of this was basically broadcast to the entire office. I doubt many people realized I was the guy whose - y'know - was missing but I just remember my face burning and feeling so angry and embarrassed. All of this was compounded when my doctor, who was one of the most interpersonally challenged people ever to earn a medical degree, was late as usual. He was never, ever on time. An average wait time for him was 45 minutes. He had meetings, other patients, obligations, blah blah blah. All I knew is that the pathology department lost an important part of me; his immensely insensitive office worker joked about it with the window open and everyone listening; and he was 45 minutes late. I was a veritable stew of frustrated aggression.

Eventually, I had it out with Mr. Doctor-man. It wasn't nice but, in terms of sticking up for myself and taking charge of my treatment, it really was one of my prouder moments. I called him up and informed him that he "worked for me, not the other way around." I told him his perpetual lateness was a sign of arrogance and disrespect and that his office staff were a bunch of insensitive clowns. Looking back on it now, I can hardly believe that this 150K+ a year doctor took all of this abuse from me. I'm glad he did because, frankly, I was right. But I'm still surprised.

Anyway, ever since then, I've been extremely sensitive about the slightest hint of disrespect from my doctors and especially their staff. The office workers are the gatekeepers, see. They're the ones with the specific mission of protecting the doctor, making sure his or her schedule stays reasonable, keeping out the uninsured riffraff, etc. Consequently, some chirpy little blond in brightly-colored scrubs with her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail can seem like Satan himself when she's insisting that the doctor simply can't see you for another two weeks.

The reason this is all on my mind is because I recently tried to get an appointment with our new family doctor. I've got a couple of prescriptions that are running out and I need them refilled. My cholesterol needs it and my peace of mind needs it. But little Miss Chirpy brushed that aside and said simply that there just weren't any openings for new patients for two weeks. If I were an "established" patient, she could fit me in but since new patients take more time, she just couldn't swing it any earlier. I was astounded. Her lack of creativity and utter unwillingness to help me in any way just about sent me over the edge. It's like doctors take the Hippocratic Oath, swearing to do no harm and help everyone they can, but their staff take the Paininthebuttock Oath, swearing to make it as hard as possible to get to the guy who took the good oath. Grrr.

So I just called a different doctor, got an appointment for two days later, and had a "new patient" exam that took ten minutes. I've got my scrips and all is well with the world. But an angry, bitter part of me wants to call the other doctor and say, "Not that it matters to you but you just lost out on my insurance dollars thanks to your obnoxious, little worker out front. Maybe you oughta have a talk with her before she drives more potential patients across the river to someone who isn't SO busy."

Of course, the doctor would then light a cigar with a hundred dollar bill and say, "What, like I want more patients? Don't you realize golf season is coming up?"

Oh well.

Medical office staff. Beware.

Weekend Viewing

My Darling Clementine is a stupid title for a pretty great movie. There's a supporting character named Clementine who figures into very little of the action and there's the song which is sung or played a couple of different times through the film. I'm not sure why the producers chose that title but who knows why they do anything.

The point is, the movie is great. It's a very lean, economical telling of the shootout at the O.K. Corral and features a mustachioed Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp. I've only seen 12 Angry Men and On Golden Pond so I'm not much of an expert on HF - but I was surprised to find what an effective Western protagonist he is. I guess it should have gone without saying but he is the very epitome of "laconic." But he's also immensely likeable. There is an authenticity to his performance that I found really persuasive.

I'd never seen Victor Mature in anything but was pleased with his appropriately Byronic take on Doc Holliday. Mind you, (cinematic heretic that I am) it was not superior to Val Kilmer's version in 1993's Tombstone but it was still really good. Walter Brennan is also great at the patriarch of the lawless Clanton brothers

Apparently, my mother-in-law was named after Linda Darnell who plays the ill-fated Chihuahua. She is a looker, for sure, but unfortunately she's about as convincing as a Mexican woman as I am. Nice to look at though.



My other movie-viewing experience this weekend was with the most recent version of Journey to the Center of the Earth. I wasn't expecting ART by any stretch and it wasn't a wretched waste of time like, say, the most recent version of The Time Machine. But it wasn't really good either. The thing that bothered me about it is that there were no characters. None of the three leads were given anything except the thinnest of backstory and wardrobe and makeup. Josh Hutcherson, the teenager, is actually a good actor. He has the right amount of youthful glower and vulnerability to make him a pretty convincing actor. He did nice work in Zathura and Bridge to Terabithia. But here, there's no reason for his behavior, no connecting line that draws together into a coherent character. The blond, Nordic, hot mountain guide gets especially short shrift. She's nothing more than a pleasing-to-look-at blip on the screen. When she kisses Brendan Fraser at the end, the audience is left to wonder why in the world she would do that. It makes no sense except that's how movies like this are supposed to end. That's all.

The thing that makes Brendan Fraser perfect for a movie like this and for not much else is the fact that he's not a convincing action-oriented leading man. He's got too much goof in him and, even though he's a pretty big guy, he always looks a little doughy. There's no sense of gravitas or danger to him. He's just a shrug-of-the-shoulders, golly-gee kinda of guy which makes him just right for producers who want to make "family friendly" films (which means non-threatening on any level). For me, it just makes him uninteresting to watch because he can't seem to give the sense that anything is at stake in the story he's playing.

The special effects were fine. They were obviously designed for the theatrical 3-D experience and, without that, there were moments that were just hokey and lame. Still, the girls seemed to like it well enough - and if a 6 year old and an 8 year old can be entertained and it's by something that doesn't involve Hannah Montana or the Witches of Waverly Place, I'm a happy man.

Naptime - I Wish

I'm feeling kind of blank this afternoon. The sky is overcast and a little rainy. I have stacks of essays to grade. It's really warm here in the Writing Lab. I feel like taking a nap.

But a nap is not in the cards. There's always more to do. Once I get this mini-mountain of papers out of the way (hopefully tonight), I still have PhD stuff to do, films to watch, pinecones to rake, etc. Busy, busy, busy.

Up next on the filmic front is Yankee Doodle Dandy with James Cagney, The Naked Spur with Jimmy Stewart, and My Darling Clementine with Henry Fonda as Wyatt Erp. My last couple of outings -- Out of the Past and Key Largo literally put me to sleep. I know film noir is my area of emphasis but jeeze - it can get to be a bit much after a while. Out of the Past was positively ponderous. Hopefully, a musical and a couple of westerns will rouse me from my stupor.