I have moved and haven't had internet and haven't had the time to post my published reviews! Sad, huh. But I have internet once again, so things are good. Look for slow going, however, as I spend the next few weeks unpacking ...
"Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia." By Elizabeth Gilbert. Penguin. $15.
I really loved this book.
That said, I also really hated this book.
Eat, Pray, Love is the memoir of a year that writer Elizabeth Gilbert spent traveling in Italy, India and Indonesia. She decided that a trip around the world was exactly what she needed after her divorce and subsequent failed rebound relationship; because she was a writer for GQ, she was able to get a book deal for the trip.
Gilbert is best known for her last book, The Last American Man, the nonfiction account of an authentic “Mountain Man.” I first discovered her when I read her novel, Stern Men, several years ago. The charming and quirky tale mixed romance and lobster fishing in a small town, but got little notice.
The memoir is a self-indulgent genre to begin with. But Eat, Pray, Love takes self-indulgence to a whole new level. We are supposed to care about Gilbert’s self-destructive relationships and quest to find good food, God and love.
And we do – or I did, at least. Gilbert is funny and clever and has a great way with words. When she travels to Naples with a friend to eat pizza, she writes:
“These pies we have just ordered – one for each of us – are making us lose our minds. I love my pizza so much, in fact, that I have come to believe in my delirium that my pizza might actually love me, in return. I am having a relationship with this pizza, almost an affair. Meanwhile, Sofie is practically in tears over hers, she’s having a metaphysical crisis about it, she’s begging me, “‘Why do they even bother trying to make pizza in Stockholm? Why do we even bother eating food at all in Stockholm?’”
I have felt like that about pizza (Sally’s in New Haven, in case you’re wondering), so I identified with Gilbert. Throughout the book I found myself saying, “Yes, that’s exactly like that!”
But 334 pages (in the paperback version, at least) of this prose gets old. Gilbert may be a good writer, but it takes editing to make a good writer great, to make her whiny complaints while at an ashram in India or struggling with visa issues in Bali matter.
The problem with Eat, Pray, Love is that it is too many things at once. It is a travelogue, a meditation on food and Italy, a search for enlightenment and a romance. Gilbert loves too many things, and she tries to cram it all in, and it just doesn’t congeal.
Still, if you can stop yourself from screaming when Gilbert is at her most annoying, her charms are plentiful. A year might be too long to travel with someone, but for a few days, here and there, Gilbert’s an amusing passenger to have along.
"After This." By Alice McDermott. FSG.
I’m always wary of comparing authors to William Faulkner.
It’s not just that anyone who writes long sentences inevitably gets compared to the man, or that anyone who has some Southern Gothic plot that involves race and class must be obviously aping Faulkner, because God knows, race and class would so totally not be anything anyone would have ever written about specifically relating to the South if it weren’t for him.
I just think the comparison is overused. It’s weak, it’s lazy. It’s like comparing anyone who writes about fishing to Hemingway. There are those wannabes out there, but there are also a lot of people who write about fishing as, well, fishing, and not as some test of virility.
Thus, when I say that After This is Faulknerian, you should know that I mean it.
In fact, it’s hard not to see After This as a modern retelling of The Sound and the Fury, substituting Long Island for Yoknapatawpha County, World War II for the Civil War, and Catholicism for the almost religious faith the Compsons have in the South. Because make no mistake, if there is one thing After This is about more than any other, it is about the Catholic faith.
The novel begins as Mary Keane (though she isn’t a Keane quite yet) leaves church in the late 1940s. It ends inside a church, three decades later, as her youngest daughter is about to get married.
Catholicism is the culture of the Keane family and their neighbors, and it is what their children (or two of them, that is) rebel against, the way Quentin and Caddy Compson rebelled against the stifling expectations of a Southern gentlemen and lady.
As the world changed around the Compsons during Southern reconstruction and tore their family apart, so the world changes around the Keanes during the 1950s and ‘60s. What begins as a hopeful love story evolves into a sparse, subtle meditation on faith, family and duty. Although the changes imposed by Vatican II are never directly mentioned, they are clearly as important to the devolution of the family as Vietnam and women’s lib.
McDermott has always been a talented author, but in After This, she takes her skills to a completely new level. She moves back and forth in time, presenting a stream-of-consciousness narrative that moves from Mary Keane to her husband John to their children Jacob, Michael, Annie and Clare.
Lest those who have attempted (and failed) The Sound and the Fury avoid this book for similar reasons, I should note that while Faulknerian, McDermott’s narrative is hardly confusing and actually propels the reader forward at a swift pace. Some moments in time in the book move slowly and are retold — a day at the beach, a party, a dinner. Others pass in just a few words, or none at all — a marriage, a death.
It is not what happens, per se, in After This that matters. It is the evocation of it, the audacity of McDermott to tell such a minuscule, particular story that is yet meant to stand for an entire generation. You, the reader, are what happens “after this,” she seems to be saying.
Ignore all those reviewers who have praised this novel as a statement about the Baby Boom generation and read the book on its own terms as a story about a family, a faith and the dying culture of both.
"The Sweet Potato Queens’ 1st Big-Ass Novel." By Jill Conner Browne with Karin Gillespie. Simon & Schuster.
Jill Conner Browne’s series of books might seem to some to be already fictional, what with titles like The Sweet Potato Queens’ Wedding Planner/Divorce Guide and The Sweet Potato Queens’ Big-Ass Cookbook (and Financial Planner).
However, her wild tales, however funny and embellished they may be, are not, technically, fiction, according to Browne. At the urging of her agent, she decided to attempt a novel and hauled along author Karin Gillespie of the Bottom Dollar Girls series (Bet Your Bottom Dollar, A Dollar Short and Dollar Daze) for the ride.
The tale that ensues is a mythical imagining of how the Sweet Potato Queens came to exist. In real life, Browne created the Queens 25 years ago for a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Jackson, Miss., her hometown. In the novel, the Queens (which include four queenly gals and one queeny man), form the group in high school in the 1960s.
The main character, aptly named Jill, has a life that unfolds in a manner not dissimilar from her author. Still, enough differences remain that no one will assume Browne is unburdening her autobiographical secrets, especially as the true stories have already been told in her previous books.
The Sweet Potato Queens’ 1st Big-Ass Novel traces the course of the five friends’ love affairs, joys and turmoil over the ensuing decades. As one might imagine, their lives are affected by the political and cultural changes that happen in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s — civil rights, feminism, gay pride, the AIDS epidemic. But all these changes play second fiddle to the true core of friendship — gossip, petty squabbles and lots of food. (And yes, recipes are included!)
While the book is aimed towards readers of Browne’s other books and her Million-Queen Nation (and world), it still has the light, sweet-as-molasses tone that will please fans of Mary Kay Andrews, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, or other books of that ilk.
The Sweet Potato Queens’ 1st Big-Ass Novel may not be as funny as Browne’s other works — truth is stranger than fiction, I suppose — but it will definitely brighten up any gloomy February day.
There is no way I could attempt to review the stunningly large impact the late Ms. Smith has had on our society. All I can say, however, is this is one celebrity death that has truly saddened me (which doesn't happen very frequently) — all the odder for who it is.
I loved Anna Nicole at the Supreme Court. That has to be my all time favorite S.C. moment. She looked so glamorous, so sad, so svelte. I've never much wanted to be Anna Nicole Smith, but at that wind-blown moment, I did.
They say from every tragedy comes a silver lining. Thus, if there is any meaning in this senseless loss it may be the legal ramifications.
WAIT.
I'm not being callous here.
Forget the fact that the paternity of her tiny daughter has yet to be determined (poor little baby who will never know its mother, sigh). I'm talking about the estate case, the one that went to the Supreme Court and is STILL unsettled. The case that has lasted almost as long as "Bleak House." According to this AP article, the legal complications could take YEARS to unravel. And, when and if they are ever done, Anna Nicole Smith could be posthumously setting legal precedents all over the land.
Now that's some influence.
And may angels sing thee to thy sleep.
"Gossip Girl." By Cecily von Ziegesar. Little, Brown. $9.99. 201 pages.
Wow, did I drink too much tonight. Three chocolate martinis in one giant gulp and instead of smoking, I burned through this whole book, "Gossip Girl."
I'm not sure which would have been healthier, the Dunhills or this book.
While I've been aware of the whole "Gossip Girl" phenomena since 2002, when the first book (this one), came out, I just never got around to reading any of the books. Frankly, Nick McDonnell's overrated "Twelve" was enough sourness from the UES teen set for me. But my sister wants the books, so if I'm going to send them to her in Africa, I might as well read them first, right?
Even the nice teens aren't very nice. But on the other hand, the mean teens aren't all that evil. "Cruel Intentions" this is not. The rich party kids who grew up blocks away from me? Well, maybe.
Ok, so I'm totally hooked into "Gossip Girl," now, sadly, even though I kind of despise all the characters. But this is a lot better than the "Sweet Valley High" books of old.
“Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood.” By Ann Brashares. Delacorte Press. $18.99. 384 pages.
All good things must end, they say. Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, even Star Trek. (Yes, I know J.J. Abrams is committed to the next movie, but, like, whatevs).
So why not, too, the Sisterhood?
For those uninitiated — i.e., you male readers — the Sisterhood is a group of four best friends, all born weeks apart, who find a magical pair of blue jeans that not only fit all four of them but also are amazingly flattering on each girl.
As a woman who might spend a month or more trying on jeans just to find one pair that fits (currently the search is at three months, in case you were wondering), I can confirm that such a pair of pants is, indeed, magical. Forget “He-who-must-not-be-named.” This is scary shit.
Well, that’s not exactly true. The SOTP series deals with “real” issues, you know, like they do on Degrassi (it doesn’t still have the “Jr. High,” does it?) or One Tree Hill (ok, bad example).
But the four friends — Lena, Carmen, Bridget and Tibby — do have divorced parents, dead parents, dating parents and weird parents. They fall in love, they get sad, they get happy, they get stressed out. They fight with their parents, with their siblings and with each other.
In short, they act pretty much like real teenage girls do.
Years ago, when a friend of mind recommended reading The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, I thought she had to be joking. I hadn’t read so-called “Young Adult” fiction (excepting Harry Potter) since I was a mere babe.
Then I heard another friend, much older than me, recommend the book. If women in their 20s, 30s and 40s were reading a book written for pre-teens and passing it along to their friends, I knew there had to be something to it.
I devoured The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I remember reading it at a Mexican restaurant in Athens, Ga., trying not to cry as the server brought me my check. It felt so real, even while it was so patently unreal.
I didn’t have divorced parents, but I emphasized with Carmen’s struggles. My mother hadn’t died, but my dad had, so I got it when Bee (a.k.a. Bridget) went nuts. I was a social outcast in high school, just like Tibby. And, like Lena, I have that timid, prudish side.
I was these girls.
The most refreshing thing about the book, however, was the way it dealt with sex. That is to say, there wasn’t much.
I know that today’s ‘tweens are crazy liberated or whatever, according to the media. However, I also remember hearing that same media criticism back in 1989, when I thought I was so grown-up for reading Seventeen when I was 12.
When I was 12, the idea of sex was really gross and scary. Even in high school, when I wore super short skirts that literally caused my mother to yell, “You are not leaving the house wearing that!” — sex freaked me out. Judging by the popularity of the SOTP series, there are a lot of girls today who still feel that way, whatever the media says.
In the first book, Bridget has sex. No one else comes close. Bee later regrets her decision, but not in the Hollywood way — i.e. “We have to tack on the guilt to keep the Christian Coalition from breathing down our necks.” She instead realizes that maybe she was too young to have sex, that maybe what she was seeking was the emotional closeness she lost when her mother died.
The reason The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was so refreshing was that it didn’t make sex seem like an easy thing to do when you’re 15, but neither did it make it seem like something you shouldn’t do until you’re married. It made sex seem messy, complicated and all too real.
The first book, released in 2001, spawned a 2003 sequel, The Second Summer of the Sisterhood. Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood followed in 2005, as did a movie of the first film, staring Alexis Bledel of Gilmore Girls and America Ferrera of Ugly Betty.
The movie was nowhere nearly as good as the book and glossed over several key (in my mind) plot points, but I still left the theatre sobbing. I mean sobbing. So did my mom.
However, the second and third books in the series were simply not as satisfying as the first, which may be why no movies are in the works for them.
Series tend to either get better and deeper as they evolve, a la Harry Potter and LOTR, or they fade into mediocrity, repeating the same plot over and over to fill the same emotional need while never having quite the same emotional resonance as the first work (see Tim Burton’s Batman or Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic series).
Forever in Blue picks up the year after the girls have started college, three summers after the first book. Of course, everything hasn’t exactly happened the way they thought it would.
Carmen is at Williams and has lost the vibrancy she once had. Bee is happy at Brown but confused about her long-distance relationship with Eric. Tibby is in love with Brian but scared of having sex with him. Lena, being Lena, is still hung up on Kostos. (And if the fictional Kostos looks anything like the filmic Kostos, I would be hung up on him too.)
The four girls spend the summer, as usual, mailing the pants back and forth between them. (This is where the science fiction also comes into play in the series — even when mailing the magical blue jeans to Mexico, Greece or Turkey, they always arrive astoundingly quickly, which, if you have ever mailed something to a country other than Canada, you know does not happen.)
As usual, by the end of the book, there are some tidy endings and you feel all warm and fuzzy and sad too. Yet this sequel is better than the other two, by far (although I say that with the caveat that I have not read them since they came out). It is not as good as the first one, but the emotional depths this novel probe come close.
The biggest difference between the fourth book and the previous three is that it does tackle sex. Two of the four girls have it. Complications ensue. Hearts break and mend, lessons are learned, but, as is the case in every other SOTP novel, nothing is completely resolved.
The only thing that is final (or so it seems) is that there can be no more sequels taking the girls through college with their magical pants. (Yes, something happens to the jeans, but no, it isn’t as obvious as them tearing beyond repair.)
The end of this book made me almost as sad as I suspect the new Harry Potter will in July. For the first time since the first book (excepting the movie), I cried. How I can I not find out what happens to Lena and Kostos? Or Bee?
Brashares has a new book (or series) in the works. Please, please let it be something like Felicity: the Next Generation.
A revised version of this review is in The Pulse this week. Should you be so inclined to read the thing twice, here you go.
Oh lawdy.
All that really needs to be said is that if offered a prix fixe menu that has the option to spend $40 more for risotto with shaved white truffles, spend the goddamn money already. White truffles are actually quite taupe but good lord if ever a food made me believe in God, this was it. While eating it, I LITERALLY felt like I was floating above the table.
LITERALLY!
LITERALLY!!!
It made me wonder if all the fuss over truffles was connected to all the fuss over those other magic mushrooms (which I have never had but have heard that they taste rather gross). I rather wish I had had only had this for dinner. And chocolate truffles? Hah! They will never cross my palate again.
That said, the meal itself was lovely too. Dinner began with a glass of Laurent-Perrier, which was expensive, delicious and appropriately celebratory. There was a cheddar puff and dab of potato soup - if plural, are they still amuse-bouches? I started with oysters, and then came a lovely 2001 Barolo. Risotto ecstasy followed, nicely complimented by aged Parm with dates. My human date had a swathe from the cheese board, and oh, those were heavenly too. Dessert was sadly unimpressive - a far too sweet and eggy huckleberry souffle. But the petits fours, cookies, and the final touch, a slightly undercooked madeline, made the entire night an affair to remember. Minus, alas, Cary Grant.
Still, this was the most expensive dinner I have ever had and I must say, Billie Holiday could have joined me at the table.
Mas Carlot 2005 Les Enfants Terribles Costieres de Nimes. $13. This wine is named for the winemakers' four children, who must be quite a handful. The name suggests a youthful, brash wine. While the vintage is young, the wine is less brash than one might think. A blend of old-vine Mourvedre and Syrah grapes, this red definitely needs a lot of breathing before its complexity becomes apparent. It made even our fine president's speech seem a little bit more weighty. Alas, it could work no magic of the plethora of bad hairstyles in the room. Maybe I would have needed to drink the whole bottle to make Margaret Spellings look cute.
"The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game." By Michael Lewis. W.W. Norton. $24.95. 299 pages.
Call it "Moneyball 2: Between the Hash Marks."
Just in time for the NFL playoffs, best-selling author Michael Lewis returns with a freakonomic look at football’s offensive line, specifically the left tackle position.
"The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game" starts in the middle of a Washington Redskins/New York Giants game — the infamous 1985 Monday Night Football game where Lawrence Taylor sacked Joe Theismann and gruesomely broke his leg, ending Thiesmann’s career. (On the field, anyway; one kind of wishes Taylor would sack Thiesmann in ESPN’s broadcasting booth and end his presence on the current Monday Night Football, but that’s a different column.)
The book goes on to explain how defensive players like Taylor, combined with the growing appeal of the West Coast offense (the short passes popularized by 49ers coach Bill Walsh), created the need for a new prototype of the left tackle position on the offensive line to protect the (normally right-handed) quarterback’s blind side.
Left tackles, on average, are now the second-highest player on NFL teams behind the quarterback, yet no one knows who they are — seriously.
Do you think Peyton Manning would have all that time in the pocket if it weren’t for Tarik Glenn?
Tarik who?
Exactly.
Lewis makes this point in "The Blind Side" by intertwining two threads, one analytical and one personal, as he did in "Moneyball." In that book, Lewis took Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane as a case study to examine the growing influence of Bill James’ SABRmetrics on the sport of baseball. In this work, a young high school player from Memphis named Michael Oher (pronounced “Oar”) becomes the foreground of an explantation of how the left tackle position has become essential to the NFL offense.
While Beane became an oddly compelling hero in "Moneyball," Oher becomes much more than that. If your eyes haven’t watered by the end of the book, whatever your gender, then you have no heart. None. (I have male friends who confessed to me that they cried while reading this, so I know.) By the same token, if this book has not made you laugh aloud, then you have absolutely no sense of humor.
Oher was what has, sadly, become the norm in the inner city — a forgotten child with a drug-addicted mother, abandoned by the system that should have protected him. Through a series of events that can only be described as a miraculous, whatever one’s religious inclination, Oher manages to survive. He becomes cared for by another black man who had escaped those same projects and who enrolls Oher at a private, mostly white, Christian school.
There, Oher is recognized as the most promising left tackle talent in the country. A rich, white, conservative Christian family takes him in and adopts him. Despite being recruited by almost every team in the country (literally), Oher follows in his new father’s footsteps to the University of Mississippi, where he remains at this moment, having just finished his sophomore season.
Lewis takes his time revealing Oher’s dismal past, ostensibly aping the slow pace Oher himself has taken opening up to his new parents, Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy. When the grim details finally spill out all at once in the next to last chapter, it seems like the material for another book. Lewis is a great analyst of the weird way in which sports, statistics and economics intertwine. In "The Blind Side," he proves himself a humanist, too, although one cannot help wondering how much more powerful the story of Michael Oher would have been if told by someone like Adrian Nicole LeBlanc.
Still, for all its flaws, "The Blind Side" makes you root for Oher’s success. Although "Moneyball" was raved about by baseball fanatics when it first came out, as the years have gone by and Billy Beane’s top prospects in the book have yet to prove themselves in the majors, many fans (and commentators) have taken to dismissing the book.
But Kevin Youkilis, one prospect Beane could not lure away from the Red Sox organization, is finally starting to become a star. One can only keep one’s fingers crossed that in a few years, NFL fans are shouting “Oooooooaaaaarrrrrrr!” like Boston fans have started shouting “Yoooooooooooook!”
First of all, this is awesome. There is no telling how many drinking games Wonkette could create from this graphic. You can discover all sorts of interesting facts, like in 2004 (Election year) Bush mentioned marriage nine times. This year? None.
Otherwise, my review of the SOTU goes like this:
Margaret Spellings has awful hair.
Nancy Pelosi is the most stylish female politician, like, ever (in that Washington way).
How clever that Hilary is seated directly above Obama. Did the networks plan it that way?
Bush’s suit is far too blue. It’s that cheap-suit blue. And what’s with the pale blue tie? Ugh.
Who is that guy with the big nose? Oh, it’s Sen. Chuck Grassley. As I said, who is that guy? What is he running for again?
Bush wants to support Belarus? Huh? Since WHEN?
Webb has some bad hair too. He also has no charisma, at least in this speech.
In brief, before you go on national television for the wonkiest night of the year, go treat yourself to a good stylist. And, as you should have learned from watching "The Princess Bride" in childhood, never get involved in a land war in Asia.
“Happiness Sold Separately.” By Lolly Winston. Warner Books. $21.99. 296 pages.
A few days after finishing this, I’m still not sure what I think. You know when you think you know what you’re getting into when you start reading a book and then it turns out by the end that it’s completely not what you expected and it makes you really angry? That’s what happened with this book. I finished it all in a rush, eager for the payoff that I was sure would await — but then it never came. While that probably makes the book a better novel, it still made me mad.
Lolly Winston published “Good Grief” a few years ago, and it became a best seller. Like the works of Jennifer Wiener (“In Her Shoes”) or Marian Keyes (“Rachel Takes a Holiday”) or Anna Maxted (“Getting Over It”), “Good Grief” was upscale, emotionally therapeutic chick-lit. It was perfect book club material — a young wife has to deal with the unexpected death of her husband, something that just isn’t supposed to happen when you’ve just gotten married and think you have the rest of your life all settled. The book made you cry (well, it made me cry anyway), but it was also funny, as Winston’s narrator was able to laugh at how ridiculous she was being in her grief. By the end of the novel, she has moved on — which is exactly why this book became a best seller.
As anyone who has dealt with grief knows, it doesn’t usually end so neatly. You take one step forward, two steps back, five steps forward, one and a half steps back. But it’s always a part of you, somewhere, even when no one else is paying attention and you have “moved on.” Yet for some strange reason, even after you’ve dealt with losing someone, it’s nice to read stories where other people’s grief has a tidy ending. Thus, I expected “Happiness Sold Separately” to have a happy ending too, or at least some version of it. And I guess, in a weird way, it does. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
“Happiness Sold Separately” is the story of Elinor and Ted Mackey. A workaholic lawyer, Elinor put off having a family until, as she discovers when pushing 40, it is too late. Their grief over miscarriages and painful and ultimately worthless fertility treatments has placed an unbearable strain on their marriage, only five years old, and Ted begins an affair with a younger nutritionist at the local gym. Elinor discovers the betrayal at the beginning of the novel, and things fall apart.
Like Winston’s prior novel, this book focuses on grief — grieving the loss of the children one will never have, grieving the loss of the marriage one took for granted. Unlike the previous novel, the grief is never resolved. Nothing is resolved, in fact, when the novel ends. Is it a happy thing that the failing marriage is probably over? Well, I suppose it will make the characters happier. But that’s not the happy ending that I wanted. If the character were going to break up, couldn’t they have found true love elsewhere, however unrealistic?
That’s the problem with this book. It tries to be a realistic novel, an Ann Beattie-type of book where a marriage is falling apart and no one is happy and everyone is deeply flawed yet somehow redeemable. The lack of any kind of resolution is what actually happens in real life, after all. But Winston never manages to cross over into Beattie’s world. Her characters need a happy ending. And in this book, they don’t get one, leaving them, and us, hanging.
Rocked my world:
AIGA Tenshow: This is what New Year's should have been like. According to my trusty Hello Kitty calendar, Jan. 20 was actually the Islamic New Year, so perhaps that had something to do with the unbridled debauchery at what may have been the best party this city has ever seen. Ok, maybe not. And actually, the debauchery was quite bridled. But still, to have this many people in a church in a neighborhood with crack dens down the street, all to celebrate the best graphic design in the state? Amazing! The only thing that could have improved the festivities would have been champagne. And despite falling down a flight of stairs and skinning my knee and bruising my elbow and scraping my forehead and ruining my tights and scratching my glasses, the afterparty was pretty damn cool too. I don't know when I have last had so much fun on a swing. Hell, I don't know when I have last had so much fun. If every weekend in Chattanooga was like this, I could be persuaded to stay.
Celine Dion'd my world:
UGA/'Bama: Come on 'Dawgs, you're ahead the whole damn game and then you fall apart in the final two minutes? At least you weren't playing Tennessee.
Is there anything cuter than a puppy or a kitten?
Yes, a baby panda. But PillowPillowPillow has to be a close second.
Because "my" digital camera was reclaimed when I lost my job and the pictures on the website are in Flash, I cannot show you how amazingly adorable these pillows are. You will have to go to the site and see them for yourself. But I can say that if I had the money, this is what I would have gotten every single one of my friends for Christmas/Hanukkah. As it was, I got one for my mom (Sofie), one for my sister (Scooter), one for CSR (Amy) and one for me (Elliot).
PillowPillowPillow is the brainchild of Aaron Stewart. I don't know Mr. Stewart, but I have seen his commercials. Of course, I didn't know they were his until I went to a holiday party with my hip artist and designer friend MB at Mr. Stewart's place of employment. The room was filled with the cutest animals I had ever seen. I debated the ethics of taking one, but I decided since they were spending all this money on an open bar with top-shelf liquor, it wouldn't be very polite to walk out with a little puppy. Plus I was already carrying around a book from my trip to Columbia and only had a tiny Coach clutch, so I didn't really want to carry around a stuffed animal the rest of the night. Plus, I never steal anyway, so it wasn't actually an option.
Anyway, the next week, I called up Hornet and asked about the animals. I was directed to the website, where I found the name of the only place that (at this point) sells PillowPillowPillows — Shady's Waggery. The fine folks there were more than happy to tell me about each animal they had in stock and to listen while I debated the merits (and costs) of each. Then they shipped them to me.
In short, if you have $45 or so burning a hole in your pocket, there is no cuter way to spend it than on a PillowPillowPillow, as baby pandas are a lot more expensive. And isn't $45 a small price to pay for something that puts a smile on your face every time you see it?
Oriel 2004 Barona Rias Baixas. $22. Seriously? This wine is actually quite good. But compared to the four pairs of boots my mom bought herself (she had the biggest bag from the Cole-Haan store that I have ever seen), would a Chloe bag from Saks really have been that much to ask for? (Ok, so maybe it would have been.) Anyway, this wine (easily found at The Grape in Atlanta, from whence it came) is a quite flavorful Spanish white. Oriel makes/distributes wines in a number of countries, but I had only seen their U.S. wines. Now I know that I have been missing out (although I can't really afford them unless I splurge in a restaurant, as I did earlier today after a job interview at the Inman Park Grape, where, alas, no Usher was present). The Barona is made from Albarino grapes, a light, dry white grape not unlike a Sancerre or Muscadet. I love Sancerre and Muscadet wines. I have less experience with the Albarino, due to the lame distribution in my part of the world (and Georgia, I'm not talking about you). But the few that I have tasted have been just as tasty. Unlike many lighter bodied whites, an Albarino grape, like a Sancerre, is rather minerally. If done right, one should just taste crisp mineral and citrus, maybe some apricot. It should not be fruity. It should not be golden, nor should it be grassy. It should be just exactly what a perfect spring day tastes like. This wine tastes like that. When it gets really grey and rainy over the next few weeks, when you just cannot wait any longer for spring, go splurge on this wine and pretend that it's May outside.
Conde de Valdemar Reserva 2000 Rioja, $19. Those who know me know I love my Rioja. So when so some good things happened yesterday, I decided to splurge on this bottle (why $15 seems like a normal price for wine and $20 seems like a splurge, I don't know. Maybe John Tierney could explain.) Unlike some other recent splurges, this was a good choice, and fully cleared my palate of the terrible Red Guitar. This Rioja is a blend of 85 percent Tempranillo grapes and 15 percent Mazuelo. The wine is aged 24 months in American and French oak barrels and then aged in the bottle 20 months. Despite the two years in oak, the wine is hardly oakey. (I assume the bottle-aging makes it more subtle? I am still learning.) It has a subtle range of flavors and is deliciously complex, a tad peppery with hints of red currant and cherry. This is a wine to be savored on its own or with a nice Manchego. I cannot wait until I have something really exciting to celebrate so that I can splurge on the Gran Reserva ($31).
Hayman Hill 2005 Russian River Valley Chardonnay, Reserve Selection, $14: I bought this wine because it was chilled and not Kendall-Jackson. It was a surprisingly complex Chardonnay for the price — a little bit of oak, deliciously buttery, yet with a crisp citrus aftertaste. A pleasing wine to serve with dinner that should delight your average white-wine-drinking friends.
Red Guitar 2005 Navarra Old Vine Tempranillo/Garnacha, $12: The vines might be old, but the wine is not. This is not a good thing, though I doubt aging could improve this bottle one whit. Tempranillo/Grenache blends tend to have a pleasant spice and acidity to them; however, I can't imagine that even Robert Parker with his love of "fruit bombs" could find anything pleasing about the overload of syrupy plum and cherry in this wine. My sometimes significant other tasted the wine and asked if I had added fruit punch to the wine. If you must buy this wine because of the cute label, use it only to make sangria.
"The Cinderella Pact." By Sarah Strohmeyer. Dutton. $24.95. 290 pages.
Earlier this month I wrote an essay in which I mentioned that September 11, 2001, changed my life in two ways — I can no longer watch horror movies, and I became a hardcore news junkie (whereas before I was just a casual user, you know).
I lied.
September 11 changed a third thing in my life too. It is just isn't as cool, so I only talk about it with that inner circle of female friends who feel the same way. Before that tragic day, I read a lot of serious, depressing literature. After it, I found comfort in chick lit.
Ok, there, I said it. I read chick lit. Not as much as I used to, but sometimes, just like you binge on chocolate or margaritas, sometime a chick lit binge is needed, sometimes for no reason at all.
So last night, despite almost falling asleep while watching "24" at 10 p.m. (I know, how is that possible? But that's how tired I was.), I opened up "The Cinderella Pact," intending to read just a few pages. At 3 a.m., now on a sugary high from the saccharine content, I put down the book, finished.
As I finally fell asleep, I thought to myself that compared to some of the recent chick lit that has crossed my path, "The Cinderella Pact" was refreshingly clever. But when I woke up this morning, once again sober and determined to avoid sugar at all costs (my next book is an almanac, 'kay?), I was really angry at the book, angry at its nonsensical plot, unrealistic romance, fairytale ending and two inch cream cheese frosting.
"The Cinderella Pact" is the tale of three overweight friends who make a pact that this time they will really lose the weight they have been trying to lose for years with little success. They plan to meet in six months, newly slender, and go on a shopping spree. Their weight-loss plan is based on the advice of a famous British columnist in a women's magazine. The only problem? The columnist is really the invention of one of the friends, who is an under-appreciated assistant editor at said magazine.
Ok, off the top of your head, name a columnist for a women's magazine, like Glamour or Cosmopolitan.
My point exactly.
British, stylish, mysterious or not, there is no way a columnist that no one has ever seen in person would become a world-wide celebrity. Especially, as in the case in this book, if her trademark fashion item were pink cowboy boots covered with rhinestones.
While reading the book, I bought into the whole preposterous set-up (and yes, there is an evil step-editor, a Prince Charming, a fairy godmother and a ball), just as when cramming one's face full of coconut cake, it's hard to stop. But then afterwards you realize that the coconut cake wasn't really that good and why in the hell did you eat it?
I suppose I am not the target audience of the book. I suspect it is geared towards women who care less about fashion than me, those women who love Sex and the City but have no idea whom Carrie is wearing in any episode, not to mention the fact that they would never, ever spend upwards of $400 on shoes. When the three friends finally do lose the weight, they go on a shopping spree and Ann Taylor and Talbot's. Seriously. If I had just lost 40-50 pounds, even if I was still a size 14, I would want to buy something more fun than professional business attire.
The only redeemable aspect of "The Cinderella Pact" is the way in which it treats weight loss. As each of the three friends drops pounds — one through surgery, one through a personal trainer, one through healthy eating and exercise — their lives change, but not in the ways they expect. As overweight women, they discover, they had blamed all their problems on their excess pounds. When those pounds are no longer there (in a realistic manner, I should note, which is another plus — no one goes from being old Oprah to new Oprah in six months), the women realize that their problems are still around. (Of course, they all resolve themselves by the end of the book, but you wouldn't expect less, would you?)
In short, do not be fooled by the photo of a diamond-encrusted Christian Louboutin shoe on the cover. This book is a pink cowboy boot with cheap rhinestones.
What rocked my world this week:
Routas Infernet 2003 Grenache/Syrah, $15: Since the Bush administration started hating France, I have made it a point to drink French wine during every nationally televised address. This week, maybe it kicked in, because he apologized. Oh wait, he's still sending troops to Iraq? Never mind. Anyway, this wine is quite tasty. It has a lot of spice, a little oak and a touch of fruit. Perfect with the pimento cheese and Melba toast I have been eating all week. I've had this wine several times now — in fact, I'm drinking it again as I write this — and it's a very sophisticated bottle for the price!
Cuvaison 2004 Zinfandel, Napa Valley: $20ish???: I "borrowed" this bottle from my wine-drinking friend and neighbor after running a number of errands for her instead of accepting payment (she knows; I do it all the time and always replace the wine, unless it is a form of payment, like this bottle); thus I have no idea exactly how much it cost. (And I think she bought it at the vineyard on a trip to Napa last fall, but anyway ...) I am not much of a California wine drinker, as you have to spend upwards of $20 usually to get a tasty bottle, and my meager wallet draws the line at $15, except for special occasions. But this wine, while a little fruit-heavy, was still a pleasant surprise. It was a tad spicy and full of character, and I would definitely buy it (or borrow it) again.
What Celine Dion'd my world this week:
[If anything is the opposite of rock, it is Celine Dion. From now on, she will represent the epitome of critical badness.]
Financial advisers (pick any, pick all): I really am trying to get a budget together. But even the financial advisers who say they aren't like the rest of the other financial advisers are still evil twits. All of them, I suspect, have their own special level in Hell awaiting them. I don't care how practical it may be, what is the point of living if one isn't suppose to do anything fun and instead should save all one's money in case one gets laid off or injured or has to quit one's job to take care of an ailing parent? Suggestions I have read this week included: working 80 hours a week, canceling your cell phone, selling your car, selling all your stuff on eBay, paying only in cash, and opening a second checking account. If I can't balance one, why on earth will having two checking accounts do anything but wreck my life? Do these people not have friends? Do they not have a life? WHO LIVES LIKE THIS?
