State of Grace

On the cover of The Mystery of Grace by Charles de Lint is a quote from Alice Hoffman: "No one does it better."

I am inclined to agree.

The setting this time around is the desert southwest rather than the now familiar Newford, so the flow isn't quite as smooth, but the story is still beautifully told, and the characters still draw you into their world and their lives.

I love the ease with which de Lint's characters come to accept the extraordinary.  Sometimes it takes a while, but I find myself starting to believe as the characters do, and before I know it, everything makes perfect sense.

After all, the basic premise in all of his stories is the possibility (or even likelihood) that the world is simply not only as it appears, not only what you can see with your own eyes and what you have known and believed all of your life -- there is more to the mystery that is life.  All you have to do is open your mind to the wonder of possibility.

Grace is adrift in her life after the death of her grandfather.  He was the only family member to who she was really close, and he was the one to introduce her to the love of her life -- cars.  Specifically vintage cars in need of restoration.  She is still trying to regain focus and motivation when her own life is cut tragically short by a junkie trying to rob her neighborhood corner store.

Because she lived in an apartment building called the Alverson Arms, she doesn't end up in Heaven or Hell but rather an in between sort of Limbo centered around the apartment building and stretching outward for several blocks.

Everyone who is there died somewhere within the Alverson Arms' sphere of influence.

Once she accepts where she is and how she got there, Grace sets out to unravel the mystery of why with the help of some of her new neighbors and John, a man she meets on Halloween, one of the two nights of the year she is able to spend with the living.

John feels such a strong connection with Grace during the few hours they get to spend together before she disappears back to the alternate Alverson Arms world that he is determined to find her and see her again, and even finding out that she died a few weeks before they even met doesn't stop him.

Instead he learns as much as he can about her, what happened to her and what the possibilities might be so that on May Eve (Beltane) when she reappears, he is outside the corner store where she died, waiting for her with her restored '57 Ford Fairlane.

At that point, I was deeply involved enough in the story and the characters that when he was waiting for her with the car, I pretty much clapped my hands and cheered.

That's the magic and power of the storytelling of Charles de Lint.  He brings you close enough to his characters that you can share their joy and their heartbreak, their hope and their confusion, and when you reach the end of the story, you wish them well on the next stage of their journey.

Of course, happily ever after isn't a realistic path for these two to follow, but you will have to read the book yourself to find out where their paths do lead.

The Mystery of Grace is a bewitching combination of old magic, new magic, tradition and good old fashioned faith, reminding the reader that, no matter what it is, you should have something you can believe in unconditionally.

Green (Arguably, this post contains spoilers.)

Green by Jay Lake is an odd book.

I really wanted to like it, enjoy it, and lose myself in it, but while the protagonist resonated for me to some extent, I was never able to sink in as far as I wanted to.

As a small child, Green is sold ... not exactly into slavery, but into a life which she does not choose, and she spends the next ten years or so trying to maintain a connection to what little past she can remember and searching for a way back.  When she is finally able to retrace her steps, she is not surprisingly disappointed, and discovers that she no longer belongs in this old life.

Once again adrift, she searches for purpose and meaning in her life.  She wants to find a way to protect other children from suffering her fate.  She wants to be independent and answer to no one.  She does not want to belong to anyone or anything lest that person or organization be able to lay claim to her.

She wants to save the world, but only if she can do it without letting it lay any claim to her, so she travels and learns and drifts, but never really belongs and is unable to work within any particular structure or adhere to any particular set of rules for long.

As the years pass, she becomes a sailor, a cook, a lover, a friend, an assassin, a god killer, and a deity creator.  She learns about independence and love and trust and betrayal.  Fairly standard coming of age lessons.

Somehow and for some reason which is never really explained (at least as far as I was able to tell) she is a lynchpin and a catalyst to great religious and mythological change going on in the world around her, but no one, even those who would try to manipulate her to further their own ends, is sure what her role is really supposed to be.

As she journeys, Green does learn a great deal about herself and the world, bringing about important change in the process, but by the book's end, her journey is far from over.

I have not yet decided if I want to know more, but the ending of this particular chapter in Green's history is satisfying while leaving plenty of room for a sequel without creating a cliffhanger.

Walking the Edge

Mel Gibson's latest film Edge of Darkness was not what I was expecting.

Since it is an action movie starring Mel Gibson, I was still expecting to see Mad Max or Martin Riggs.  While they are definitely still in there, and time has been good to Mel, he is also definitely older and knows that every physical battle is going to take more of a toll than it used to.  While Max and Riggs would just wade right in, Tom Craven watches a bit longer, plans a bit farther ahead, depends on the gun a bit more, and his accuracy has only improved with time and practice.

The silliness is gone as well.  He's more serious, and any humor is more along the lines of sarcasm.

It looks good on him.

The plot follows a standard formula in that the bad guys take what matters most from the hero, but it is heartbreaking in a way and to a degree which I have never encountered in an action film.  First his daughter dies a horribly violent death in his arms, and then throughout the rest of the film he hears her voice and sees her as a little girl, reliving his favorite father/daughter moments.

The special effects and stunts are there, of course, but they are not so over the top as to eclipse the plot or characters.  Their relative subtlty allows for a greater degree of realism and makes the surprises more surprising when they happen, despite heavyhanded foreshadowing on the part of the musical score.

Ray Winstone is the only other actor I recognize, and he is brilliant as Darius Jedburgh, who adds an interesting subplot as he tries to decide which side he should be on.  Everyone assumes him to be on the side of the bad guys, but he's not so sure, and he's not willing to just do their bidding without finding out for himself (or letting Craven find out) what the real story is.  He adds a few more shades of grey in a genre dependent on black and white.

The bad guys would like to be as complicated as our hero and his potential accomplice, but it is only their protective web of lies which is complicated.  The men themselves are simply about power.  The fact that they could easily be real people -- a defense contractor and a senator -- who are part of our everyday existence makes them terrifying.

People in power think that it protects them, and to some degree they are correct, but if it insulates them too well and they depend on that protection, they can get complacent, or it can become isolating or even suffocating. They lose sight of what is going on in the world outside of their little sphere and either forget or refuse to acknowledge that there are consequences, and consequences don't apply only to other people.

The United States government wants its citizens (and as much of the rest of the world as possible) to be afraid of the terrorists, and maybe we should be, but the terrorists or hostile governments in other countries don't hate America because of its citizens.  They hate it because of its government, which loves power just as much as they do. The U.S. government is just as capable of horrible things as any member of the so-called "Axis of Evil."

Edge of Darkness tells a story which could be unfolding right now, although the ending might not turn out quite the same.  The first few minutes of the film eliminate the possibility of happily ever after, but there is closure and redemption, and, from a certain point of view, justice.

The Joy of Cooking (with Bacon Grease)

In the film Julie & Julia, and in the original blog as well if I recall correctly, Julie Powell poses the question -- which I tended to assume was pretty much rhetorical -- "Is there anything better than butter?"  Her clear implication is that there is absolutely nothing better than butter, and while I would love to agree so completely, I found myself answering to the contrary today.

"Bacon grease," I said with confidence.

The key difference, however, is that you can use large quantities of butter in recipes with relative ease.  I can't imagine making pastry with bacon grease.  But when it comes to such activities as frying an egg or a few potatoes or even sliced zucchini, bacon grease is decidedly the way to go.

I might even go so far as to credit bacon grease with the success of my almost omelette this morning.  Eggs thoroughly whisked with a handful of feta cheese and poured into a hot greased frying pan.  The flip wasn't a complete success, but it was much closer than I have managed in the past, and the feta melded into the eggs beautifully.

So little goes so far and generously gives whatever is cooked in it as rich, full, delicious flavor.  A scant teaspoon coated an entire sliced zucchini in deliciousness.  My mouth practically waters just thinking about it.

A bit of bacon, a bit of omelette and a bit of zucchini on my fork creates a delectable mouthful.  (Somehow I have gone from being one of those people who eats every item on the plate separately to one who insists on combining as many of the foods as possible.  I'm not quite sure how or when that change happened.)

Bacon isn't something that appears on the menu in my kitchen all that often, which may be part of the reason that it is so appreciated when it does.  When I was cooking green beans for Thanksgiving, I decided to add a bit of bacon to them.  I steamed the fresh snapped green beans for a few minutes, and while they were steaming I chopped up a few slices of raw bacon and threw them into a sauce pan.  Once the bacon was mostly cooked, I drained off most of the fat and then threw the just steamed green beans into the pan.

At that point I realized how much easier it had been to cook the bacon in the sauce pan than it generally was to cook in a frying pan.  There was less splattering.  There was no need for flipping because all I had to do was stir the smaller pieces in the sauce pan.  Chopped up and in a sauce pan is now how I cook bacon.

The one tiny drawback is that it can be deceptively easy to overcook the bacon using this method, but I have since learned to pay a little closer attention and all is well.

Of course, only a very little bacon grease can kill you if you don't combat the potential evil with exercise, but when I sit down and enjoy foodstuffs fried in bacon grease, I have a hard time believing that life could possibly get any better.

For the love of feline friends

Cats have been a part of my life since the summer after my fourth birthday. 

My mother came home from the local farmers’ market with two small fur balls who had the audacity to peer out at her from a laundry basket, and Mittens and Tinkerbell came into our lives.

Sadly, Tinkerbell the tortoiseshell had an unfortunate encounter with the large brown Boxer/Great Dane mix already in residence at the house on Westminster Place and was not with us long.

On the other hand, Mittens, the dapper gentleman in the gray and white tuxedo, was a member of the family for twenty-one years.

Since the arrival of those first two, many cats have passed through my life and the lives of my family and friends.

The current feline resident of my little house on Water Street is Minerva – a resplendent, although perhaps bordering on rotund, black longhair completely at peace with her surroundings and welcoming to anyone who might come to bask in her majestic cuteness.  She’s only trying to look fierce in this picture.

In honor of furry family past and present, I feel compelled to share the following two postings.  As a word of caution, the first is quite heartbreaking, and if you aren’t at least sniffling by the end, you are made of stern, inhuman stuff.  On the bright side, the second link provides something of an antidote, so I invite you to read and enjoy and remember and perhaps hug your own furry friends a little closer.

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/01/zoe.html

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/01/small-cat-story-and-tabs-to-close.html

Neil Gaiman and the New Yorker

I seemed to be a bit obsessed with Neil Gaiman these days, and especially his relationship with Amanda Palmer.  They're just so cute and in love and obviously crazy about each other.  In a world of so much bad news, it's cheering to see.  It doesn't hurt that Amanda Palmer is one of those crazy, smart, outgoing women I like to pretend that I could be.

I was thoroughly entertained by Neil Gaiman's most recent blog entry: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/01/roundup-of-hasty-strangeness.html

I especially liked the bit about Amanda Palmer and Guest, for a number of reasons.  First of all, he is the "famous" one who actually got the invitation because of Coraline, and second because you can just tell that he absolutely loved being completely eclipsed by her.

Then there is their engagement photo: http://www.neilgaiman.com/extras/media/engagement.jpg

Finally, there is a New Yorker profile: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/01/25/100125fa_fact_goodyear

Someday I really am going to read Sandman in its entirety.

One Down, Fifty-one to Go

I seem to have be having a love affair with France.  I'm not quite sure where it started.  I grew up watching Julia Child's television show The French Chef, but there wouldn't have been any reason to make a connection between Julia and Paris or France.  It was about food and cooking, so perhaps what I really should be writing about is the love affair with food.  How people cannot love and appreciate truly good food, carefully prepared and made with quality ingredients, is completely beyond me.

My choice of reading has a lot to do with it.  There was A Pig in Provence and then The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry, which actually took place in Paris.  Then there was Julie & Julia, which was a lovely reminder of the wonder of Julia Child.  I even read part of Julie Powells blog -- which led to the book and the movie -- and I should probably read the rest to see how the original turned out.  I have not yet managed to read Appetite for Life and My Life in France, but they are, of course, on my list.

I have acquired a few volumes by M.F.K. Fisher and Judith Jones, and have even begun to read Secret Ingredients, the anthology of food writing from the New Yorker.

The animated film Ratatouille fits in here somehow, although I am not exactly sure how, and the film adaptation of Julie & Julia, which is also based on My Life in France, is truly delightful.  I think that the film version of The Devil Wears Prada and the television series Highlander and The Raven have probably contributed to the Parisian infatuation as well.

I have even started off my reading new year with food and Paris.

I finally finished reading my first book of the year last Sunday, which is now dangerously close to a week ago, and I doubt that I am realistically close to finishing another in the next twenty-four hours or so to keep up the pace.

Not exactly a rip roaring start toward my annual goal of a book a week, but at least it's a start.

The book in question is The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious and Perplexing City by David Lebovitz.

The Sweet Life is part memoir, part travel guide, part cookbook, and I enjoyed all of it.

Fifty pages into it, and I fell in love with the city and the food all over again.

There is a deceptively simple recipe for chocolate cake which I have tried and failed at once, but I am prepared to try again.

Delicious recipes aside, I find the storage recommendations which Lebovitz includes at the end of his recipes to be the most thoughtful and helpful.

As one might have heard or expect, the French take food very seriously.  "In France, calling yourself a chef carries a lot of responsibility.  It's not just someone who tosses a piece of fish on the grill, drizzles it with olive oil, and tops it with a sprig of thyme.  That makes one a cook, not a chef.  A chef is someone who has the responsibility for composing menus, managing food costs, overseeing a staff, and most important, has usually risen through the ranks the hard way.  Many begin scrubbing pots and pans in the dishroom when they can barely reach the sink, and no job is too menial."  (pg. 245)

Lebovitz did not begin his career in food quite so early, but he has certainly paid his dues by working his way up and even overcoming a few of his fears.

If nothing else, I have discovered another reason to move to or at least spend some time in Paris -- if Lebovitz is to be believed, that is.  Given the historic expatriate community of Hemingway and company, I am inclined to believe him when he says, "In a nation of readers, writers are revered in France lik pro gootball players are in America.  And if you write about chocolate and ice cream [as he does] and make killer brownies, you're like the one who scored the winning field goal for the home team." (pg. 219)

Now all that remains for me to do is to write and publish something that the French care to read.

What I also think it might mean is that telling someone in France that writing is your occupation will be met with less skepticism and disdain than it often is in the United States, provided you can back up your claim, of course.  All the more reason to keep practicing.

Sherlock Holmes

I have long suspected that Sherlock Holmes is a scoundrel.

All I had to do was wait for Robert Downey, Jr. to come along and confirm my suspicions.

I have always wanted to believe that Holmes came by his knowledge through experience and experimentation rather than simply sitting in his study by the fire, wrapped in a smoking jacket, puffing on his pipe.

Downs’ Holmes is rumpled and frequently in desperate need of a shower and a shave.  His rooms are clearly losing the entropy battle, although I am sure that there should be no doubt that their inhabitant knows where everything is.  The dressing gown in which he shrouds himself is a thing of beauty – almost a character unto itself.  If I didn’t know better, I would swear that it is being held together by duct tape.

Jude Law, on the other hand, is quite forgettable as Watson.  A faithful and able sidekick to be sure, despite the smug, satisfied look glued onto his face, implying that he is actually the one who knows best, but it is the women who leave an indelible impression.  (Perhaps it is their more colorful wardrobe, while Watson is forever wearing the same brown suit.)  I believe that there is the suggestion of a limp in Law’s portrayal of the good doctor, but that may simply have been Law’s performance.

Lord Blackwood is a sinister enough villain, but it’s a little difficult to take seriously a man who insists on wearing a long black leather coat with wide lapels which makes him look like Count von Count from Sesame Street, a look accentuated by close cropped hair and protruding ears.  Not being able to take this particular nemesis seriously doesn’t much matter, however, because it’s the man lurking in the shadows who actually deserves your interest.

The ladies round out the cast, nicely filling in the gaping holes left by the supporting men, and not solely by virtue of their fabulous wardrobes.  Mary Reilly is brilliant in the minor role of Mary Morstan, Watson’s intended.  She and the great detective get off to a bit of a shaky start, but once she realizes that the reservoir of Holmes’ emotion is as deep as her own, she no longer sees him as competition for her fiance’s affection.

Not having read all of Holmes’ adventures myself, Irene Adler is a woman I know almost exclusively by reputation, and Rachel McAdams does justice to that reputation.  She is a delightful combination of ally and adversary.  It’s not hard to see why they find their weakness in one another.

The plot moves along nicely, with sub plots and bits of back story to keep things interesting without overcomplicating them, but it’s all preparation.  Consider Sherlock Holmes the setup for the main event.  The boys of Baker Street are introducing themselves to pique your curiosity and whet your appetite.  The next movie is where the real action is going to be, but it never hurts to have had a proper introduction.

There is some unconventional cinematography (perhaps meant to hearken back to a time when editing didn’t have the potential to be so seamless), and the soundtrack jangles to the point of being jarring.  There is even a bit of a Keystone Cops feel to some of the fight scenes, but ultimately the film sticks to the tried and true formula of any Holmes story: the seemingly fantastic and impossible have a completely logical -- often ordinary and sometimes intricate -- explanation.  All that needs to be done to solve the puzzle is for someone to be paying close attention to the facts rather than the distractions.  Very close attention.

Martha, Martha, Martha

Lots of people think that Martha Stewart is amazing, and they would like nothing more than to be her, or at least be able to all of the snazzy and creative things that she does.

Lots of other people think that Martha Stewart is evil, or at least can't stand her.

Either way, she inspires a lot of strong feelings and opinions.

I used to be closer to the latter line of thinking than the former.  It wasn't so much that I thought she was evil as that so many of her ideas and projects struck me completely impractical.  She elevated the rank of domestic goddess to absurdity.

Then a number of years ago, when there was still the faintest semblance of television reception in my household, I had a few opportunities to watch her show.  It was about the same time that more of my reading started to be about food, and I realized that while a lot of her ideas and projects still definitely did not fit into my world in any way, a lot of what Martha is about is food because she is the domestic goddess and food is a necessary component to home making and entertaining.  After all, at a dinner party, a fabulous meal can compensate for lackluster surroundings far better than fabulous surroundings can compensate for mediocre food.  So I started paying closer attention.

She's no Julia Child, of course, but Martha has the advantage of appreciating and enjoying good food as well as being health conscious, and no matter how much I swear up and down that there are foods that I will never give up no matter how bad they might be for me, I ultimately would like to find a balance of food that is good for me (or at least not life threatening) while being the kind of delicious that stimulates the happy pleasure centers in my brain.

I bought one of her cookbooks.  I started buying the Thanksgiving issue of Martha Stewart Living.  Now -- due to, I must admit, collecting Coca Cola rewards points -- I am a subscriber to both Living and Everyday Food.  (Every once in a while, one of my favorite vices finds a way to redeem itself.)

My first issue of Everyday Food only arrived the other day, and I have not yet had time to read it, but I have received three issues of Living so far, and I have devoured every single one.

The February issue has reminded me that making my own granola should be near the top of my cooking project list.  The tempting recipes include Potato-Onion Frittata (which will amaze my mother since I used to refuse to eat onions) and Steamed Salmon with Avocado (which reminds me that I need to find out what fleur de sel is), and mushroom risotto.  I want to try her Classic White Bread recipe (most likely the cinnamon raisin variation) just to see how it stacks up against other bread recipes I have tried.

The theme of the issue is, of course, Valentine's Day, which generally doesn't do much for me, but I find myself seduced by the Cloud Cupcake.  It looks a bit deadly -- as in, even one might be too much -- and cupcakes are most definitely not my forte, but I am intrigued, curious and tempted all the same.

There is even a full page ad for Cabot cheese which has a ravioli recipe I want to try (because making my own ravioli is also on the cooking project list).

In somewhat the same vein, an article about remodeling a farmhouse has me wishing for the range (from http://www.wolf.com apparently), although not necessarily the extended version shown in the photograph.

Okay, if I am honest, the whole article has me wishing for a remodeled farmhouse of my own.

As with her show, and everything Martha, there are still plenty of her ideas which are beyond me, but they are fun to read about and look at, and occasionally I find something that I can actually use.  What really keeps my interest is the recipes.  I have to admit that I love the articles about food -- whether for simple meals or extravagant entertainment -- and the photographs have me devouring the recipes on the page.

There are those who may scoff, and there are those who may disagree with her methods, but I don't care what anyone says.  The woman knows what she is talking about, and I intend to learn from her.

Musical note

Every once in a while, a piece of music sneaks up and surprises me.

Today I was running a bit later than usual to work, so I got to hear a segment on the local classical music station called Keith's Classical Corner.  (Keith in this case is Keith Lockhart, the current conductor of the Boston Pops.)

Today's featured composer was Pablo de Sarasate, who was also a violin virtuoso.

His Carmen Fantasy and Zigeunerweisen (Gypsy Airs) are his most famous works, but Keith (yes, we're on a first name basis -- isn't everyone?) selected Scottish Airs (which I can't seem to find online anywhere but which can be found on the cd Sarasate: Virtuoso Works for Violin).

The piece starts off fairly slow, and I found my mind wandering to other subjects, just sort of thinking about my day and trying to organize the chaos of my mind a bit.  After a minute, this cheery little tune was filling my car, and I found myself happily smiling along.

It's a great way to start the day, especially if you aren't quite sure how it is going to go.