In Training for a Heroine

Goodbye!

2010-04-18T15:19:00.002+02:00

It was a nice ride,

GOODBYE!

In the Mood for a Moonlight Serenade

2010-01-19T23:55:00.012+01:00

>>>CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

What a week! New term, I have a few classes in common with Anna Popplewell (who played Susan in both The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian) and I went to a concert for the first time! But first things first:

You absolutely have to go see An Education (2009). I was eagerly waiting for this movie for it stars none other than Carey Mulligan who has been one of my favourite actresses for four years. I believe I've seen practically everything she's done and yet she managed to completely blow me away in this extremely well-crafted piece. She deserved a Golden Globe for Best Actress so much, I'm really shocked she lost to Sandra Bullock of all people. I fell head over heels for this film - the story is simple. In 1961, a young woman, Jenny (Carey) who lives in a dull suburb of London and who dreams of going to Oxford to read English meets meets a charming older man, David. He'll show her everything she ever dreamt of seeing: Oxford, Paris, jazz clubs, nice restaurants. Jenny is greatly intelligent, she's not clueless at all (her approach to sex is actually quite refreshing for the era) and shows that intelligence isn't only book-smarts. I don't want to spoil anybody as to the plot of the whole movie but let's just say it's a reflection on education, on privileges and on happiness - all themes very dear to me. The movie is impeccable from beginning to end, the last sentence being so practically perfect in every way. There's also a moment, a tiny moment when Jenny has an important conversation with her headmistress (Emma Thompson, brilliant) about the point of education that is so clearly going to be the clip shown at the Academy Awards that it left me completely speechless. Oh sorry I really have to spoil you to express my feelings accurately, don't read if you haven't seen the movie or don't want to know the end:

Ms Walters: Nobody does anything worth doing without a degree.
Jenny: Nobody does anything worth doing with a degree. No woman anyway.
Ms Walters: So what I do isn't worth doing? Or Ms Stubbs does, or Mrs Wilson, or any of us here? Because none of us would be here without a degree. You do realise that, don't you? And yes, of course, studying is hard and boring...
Jenny: Boring!
Ms Walters: I'm sorry?
Jenny: Studying is hard and boring. Teaching is hard and boring. So what you're telling me is to be bored, and then bored, and finally bored again and this time for the rest of my life? This whole stupid country is bored! There's no life in it, or colour, or fun. It's probably just as well the Russians are going to drop a nuclear bomb on us any day so... My choice is to do something hard and boring or to marry my Jew and go to Paris and Rome and listen to jazz and read and eat good food in nice restaurants and have fun. It's not enough to educate us anymore Ms Walters, you've got to tell us why you're doing it.
(Ms Walters fails to give an answer)
Jenny: I don't want to be impertinent, Ms Walters. But it is an argument worth rehearsing. You never know, someone else might want to know the point of it all one day.

And on that note, she quits school. But after finding out David isn't who he is (and this part is handled so subtly) she realises she can't give up on her dream, she applies to Oxford and after a lot of hard work, she gets in (it's so eerie seeing Oxford on the big screen it's like seeing one's bedroom on the big screen, feels so personal). It made me question a lot of things. (I want to teach but at the time Jenny, because she's a woman had a choice between teaching and being a civil servant, a choice she resented. Did I chose this profession because I too felt it was the only one I could access? Worth thinking about, and terrifying of course). Jenny's fears and arguments make a lot of sense when you think about it. But this movie is incredibly smart - to me, Jenny realises she has to be her own self and discover this life by herself by getting there with a mind of her own, not because she's tied up to somebody else on whom she depends. The last line is all about that, self-discovery, education for the sake of education. Jenny dates other boys and "One of the boys suggested that we go to Paris and I said I'd always wanted to see Paris. As if I'd never been." I relate so much to Jenny it's as if the film had been written for me. One of the best movies I've ever seen, for sure.

I finally read my first play by Oscar Wilde - up till now I had read Dorian Gray, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and I was looking forward to discover more of his writings, so I borrowed a copy of The Importance of Being Earnest from the library. I was not disappointed, this play is really good. It's a classic tale of mistaken identities with a lot of comedy thrown in, most of it provided by the wonderful character of Cecily - a young woman whose personality is so interesting she completely steals the show. She creates her own reality - when she's in love, she writes letters to herself and pretends they're from her lover and then thanks her fictional lover for his letters. "Do you remember when you called off the engagement?" she asks to a confused Algernon, and she produces the letter she wrote in Algernon's name explaining the whole affair as she imagined it.
There's also some great situation comedy in the first scene in which Algernon eats the cucumber sandwiches made for his Aunt and keeps assuring his friend they're for his aunt before helping himself to some more. An absolute delight of a play, it's witty and entertaining and I'm looking forward to reading more by Wilde.

I've just (a few minutes ago, I had typed this post before and now I'm adding this paragraph) come back from the Glenn Miller Orchestra concert at the Oxford Playhouse. I'm at a loss for words. This was my first concert ever and boy did it deliver. Absolutely fantastic. I had a dream seat (row C, seat 12) and couldn't have been more ideally placed. I was by far the only person under the age of 50 that I could see but I do believe I was the most enthusiastic - to be quite honest my mouth might need surgery because I just couldn't stop smiling for two hours and a half! I was often the first one to clap after a song and I was for sure the first person to stand up to clap the whole orchestra at the end of the concert. People were a bit... slow but the row behind me was super enthusiastic as well. It's such a wonderful feeling to be sharing this music with other people.
I don't know if the seating arrangement is the best - I for one wanted to dance so bad during several songs but had to stay still in my seat.
The orchestra was absolutely splendid. Not one mistake, completely flawless and the selection of songs was amazing. Moonlight Serenade live is pure heaven. It outranked In the Mood as my personal favourite and trust me that was a challenge. Insanely catchy and gorgeous during the slow songs, we were treated to a tribute to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin in the middle and one last rendition of My Favorite Things by Rogers and Hammerstein. Other highlights included Tuxedo Junction and When the Saints Go Marching In. Worth every single pound. Just to give you a clearer picture: I actually cried, literally, when they played their first song. I couldn't believe my luck - most of the artists I love are long dead. And the song was Anchors Aweigh, one of Miller's catchiest. One of the musicians was in Benny Goodman's band for years. Can you imagine?
DO try and see them if you can, it's a terrific experience. I can't believe this was my first concert, it set the bar so high!

See you soon for the next adventure!

Sibylle

Holmes, does your depravity know no bounds?

2010-01-10T20:48:00.011+01:00

>>>CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

♫ Tell me how you feel, riding with James Dean ♫. Hey there! First post of 2010, this is exciting. I've been poorly for days and everybody knows that reading and watching a lot of films is the only good thing about being ill. Happy to get to do both! Woohoo, it's going to be a good year, I can feel it.

Have you met Rumpole? Apparently he's a famous character in a TV show (Rumpole of the Bailey) written by John Mortimer, the show was broadcast between 1975 and 1992. I never saw it. However, the show was so popular that a series of books was published - the first few were novelized versions of the episodes and the most recent ones are new stories altogether. I met Rumpole through the first of these new novels, Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders, published in 2004. I don't think any knowledge of the character is required beforehand - at the very least, I didn't feel lost at all. I don't like mysteries much, or so I thought. Rumpole isn't a detective, first of all, he's a barrister. And he's super engaging, dedicated and funny. A reviewer on Amazon found a particularly hilarious quotation: "Mortimer first describes the appearance of Wystan as one that made him think of a "lobster who had been snatched from a peaceful existence at the bottom of the sea and plunged into boiling water." Followed immediately by a slight retraction, "but I have no wish to be overly critical of my future father-in-law." It's good too to feel privy to a world that's most of all very secret, I loved all the details about court politics interwoven with tales of Rumpole's own private life. I said I wasn't much for mysteries - I've tried Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and several cosies, to no avail. I was pleased to find that if the narrative feels right, I can enjoy this genre as well.

This is partly the reason why I saw Sherlock Holmes - I wouldn't sit through an adaptation of one of Conan Doyle's cases but I absolutely loved this movie. This fast-paced, witty, interesting tale is great fun. The acting is superb on all accounts, Sherlock is this close to being portrayed as a misanthrope turned mad and Irene Adler, Irene Adler is nothing short of a true heroine. She outwits Sherlocks, engages with him in witty banter and still manages to stay classy from beginning to end. The plot is tight, Mark Strong gave me the chills, and the score is wonderful, highlighting the absurdity of the story in all the right places (Sherlock deduces, using the same strategy he uses to solve his crimes, how he can win a boxing match) and the end leaves it all open to a sequel which will star none other than Moriarty. If you know a bit about the canon, you'll know how important this character is and I for one absolutely can't wait for the next installment.
I read The Hound of the Baskervilles - I didn't think the mystery itself was all that interesting but Doyle has a talent for depicting an atmosphere, and I do love Watson's voice. He's very earnest and feels like a true friend. I'd like to give an example of this particularity of Doyle's writing:

"But the dining-room which opened out of the hall was a place of shadow and gloom. It was a long chamber with a step separating the dais where the family sat from the lower portion reserved for their dependents. At one end a minstrel's gallery overlooked it. Black beams shot across above our heads, with a smoke-darkened ceiling beyond them. With rows of flaring torches to light it up, and the colour and rude hilarity of an old-time banquet, it might have softened; but now, when two black-clothed gentlemen sat in the little circle of light thrown by a shaded lamp, one's voice became hushed and one's spirit subdued. A dim line of ancestors, in every variety of dress, from the Elizabethan knight to the buck of the Regency, stared down upon us and daunted us by their silent company. We talked little, and I for one was glad when the meal was over and we were able to retire into the modern billiard-room and smoke a cigarette.

"My word, it isn't a very cheerful place," said Sir Henry. "I suppose one can tone down to it, but I feel a bit out of the picture at present. I don't wonder that my uncle got a little jumpy if he lived all alone in such a house as this. However, if it suits you, we will retire early tonight, and perhaps things may seem more cheerful in the morning."

I drew aside my curtains before I went to bed and looked out from my window. It opened upon the grassy space which lay in front of the hall door. Beyond, two copses of trees moaned and swung in a rising wind. A half moon broke through the rifts of racing clouds. In its cold light I saw beyond the trees a broken fringe of rocks, and the long, low curve of the melancholy moor. I closed the curtain, feeling that my last impression was in keeping with the rest."

I love this passage, it's so distinctive. Alright! I think that's it for books and movies. I saw The Lovely Bones too - excellent acting (Saoirse Ronan is shockingly good but then I've known that since Atonement) but it was a mess. I'm watching The Big Bang Theory - it was good at first but it's becoming redundant, it's the same jokes over and over again. This is the first sitcom I've managed to be interested in so this is a letdown once again, it doesn't seem to be a genre I appreciate.

Some music before I let you go! I think I've talked about everybody I love here, so how about a compilation? Puttin' on the Ritz: Capitol Sings Irving Berlin was released in 1992. It's got a lot of excellent singers performing songs by this amazing composer. Judy Garland for Puttin' on the Ritz (one of my favourite songs ever), Margaret Whiting for Heat Wave (fun song, by the way, "Gee, her anatomy/Makes the mercury/Jump to ninety-three.") and Jo Stafford for Play A Simple Melody. I think the artwork of the cover ALONE is worth a few seconds of your time:

I can't find a way to stream the songs - if you have access to Spotify, it's on there, though. Or buy, borrow, steal.

Have an excellent month of January!

I can't get enough of him!

Sibylle

On Friendship

2009-12-31T14:29:00.007+01:00

I wish I had friends. I see all these people who are part of a real group of people to which they belong. I see people loving others and sharing with others knowing they'll be understood. I wish I had that. It costs me to say it because it sounds like I can't be on my own and need other people to be dependent on to live. I thought that in coming to Oxford I would have more of a chance to finally have this life, to stop feeling so alone even in a room full of people. First of all, I'm in an English-speaking country. You've probably noticed everything I'm interested in is in English - I can't help it. I wish it could be different, it'd be easier if I found things in French to be infinitely more interesting than things in English, but I don't. It's a coincidence and I wish it were different and easier but I can't help it. It's not my fault that most, almost all, of my favourite things happen to be in English. At "home" (but isn't home where the heart is?) nobody understands what drives me, what makes me feel alive. It's different here, even if I didn't meet anybody I'd consider a friend, everything is eerily familiar, because the culture is more mine than "home" is. I wish I could never leave this place.

So why can't my hopes come true? I had great expectations when coming here, as I said, and yet today I'm as lonely as ever and don't know whom to call to complain about homophobic people in my neighbourhood and dream of a world where pansexuality would be the norm.
Am I cynical? Maybe. I don't know exactly. Most of the people I meet seem to be content with very simple things which I personally find simplistic and therefore dangerous. Perhaps I over-analyze, perhaps I ask too much and give too little.
I am hugely interested in fandom but don't feel like I belong there either. A lot of the people I meet are huge Disney fans - I can't stand Disney. It's moralistic in the worst way, racist (Aladdin, Pocahontas, The Aristocats) conservative (mariage is still everybody's goal), misogynist (do I need to give you examples? Seriously?) and full of saccharine (boy meets girl, happily ever after, birds sing and dress women up for crying out loud). I don't like musicals - people seem to love them, it makes them happy. I find them cheesy and forced. I don't celebrate Christmas, I'm an agnostic becoming more and more of an atheist with every passing day and I don't understand how even irreligious people can think it's okay to have a special day of the year to show others you love them. I'd say "I love you" every day if I had anybody I felt that towards, not just one day a year. I don't like animés - the girls are weak or used for their sexual availability, the humour is not mine, the interesting themes not developed enough for me. I'm not sentimental. I don't see life as a constant search for the perfect couple. What would interest me, at best, would be friendships because people have things in common, not love stories although I'd argue that friendship is love. Babies do nothing to me, it's not because people or things are small that they are pretty. Innocence does nothing to me, people call innocence what should be called ignorance. I don't believe in essentialism, I've already said it here but conversations that start with "men are" and "women are" make me want to break something. Men are not, and women are not. Pre-constructed ideas of what women should be and men should be according to an arbitrary model are not a way to keep me interested. Same goes for "the (insert favourite nationality here) are". Determinism can be, and thank humanity for that, conterbalanced by free will. We all have a brain, use it. I can't be bothered with people who haven't even reached that stage of understanding.
Perhaps it makes me a cynic indeed, but I'd like to thing of myself as a realist. I don't sugar-coat and can't stand cowards who do.
I'm interested in philosophy, in questioning the "why" behind everything and finding foolproof concepts to live by (why no death penalty? "it's not human" is not foolproof, if you were serious about having a strong point of view you'd see that and try to find something else. Personally, I say that mistakes are human and if a judge sentences a person to death and after the death further evidence makes it clear that the person was innocent, there's no way to repair anything, whereas if the person is still alive, things can be done. Right now that's the point I've reached, I'd like to find even stronger arguments when DNA tests make it clear the accused is the culprit). I stick to them. At the same time, I'm desperately interested in fiction, in how ideas that I have or should have can work in stories that to me could be real. It gives me hope. My favourite works of fiction depict my utopia. Always.

So there you have it. I know some people think I'm cold because I question "the child in them", whatever that means. It just leaves me frustrated and heartbroken to see people my age or even older haven't bothered to do what I did, which is to move on and look for truth. But it's nothing compared to shallow people who love the same works I do but because the physical appearance of this actor gives them a model to project their fantasies on (fantasies that include Mills and Boon-like scenes, mariage and children). On the other hand you can't deny I'm extremely passionate about some things. More than anything I wish to find in friendship is understanding, I can't explain what seem to be the most basic things to me to my friends, they have to come with this baggage already. But they also have to be passionate about worthy works of fiction which gives them a way to look at life in the face. Is it too much to ask for humanists who are free and open and would dance with me to Glenn Miller, go take Charleston classes and regroup to swap excellent books we read and for marathons of Gilmore Girls which we would watch for Lorelai, Rory, Paris and Emily? Apparently it is. I've been looking for them for 21 years and I'm still looking.

I have no idea why I'm posting something so personal here. I should buy a diary. I'm glad to have the comments turned off in moments like these as I'm definitely not looking for any.

It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)

2009-12-23T01:13:00.010+01:00

>>>CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

Guess who has tickets to the Glenn Miller Orchestra concert on January 23? That's right! And row C if you please because I jumped on the chance as soon as I saw this performance on next year's schedule. Saying that I can't wait is a massive understatement.
I don't know yet if I want to post a reminder of what I loved this year, 2009 was pretty bad in terms of new discoveries. September was the worst month of them all and it's a wonder I survived it. 2010 is likely to be as busy as I'll be preparing a really hard exam to sit in June 2011 (only 10% of those who sit pass). But none of that now. I have new names to be excited about so without further ado, let me introduce you to...

P.G. Wodehouse. Now why, why did I wait so long? His books are a complete riot. I grabbed an omnibus at random from the library and it ended up being an omnibus of his last two Jeeves and Wooster novels, Much Obliged, Jeeves and Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, but no matter, they stand well on their own, some references to previous stories were lost on me but not so much that I felt lost. I fell head over heels for him. I am SO glad he was such a prolific writer - he wrote several series of books and a whole shelf worth of stand-alone titles. Jeeves is Wooster's sparkling and bright valet (now that's social commentary for you, that the valet should by far be smarter than the gentleman - by the way, did you know that a valet serves a person whereas a butler serves a house? Fascinating stuff). The latter is terribly slow-minded and gets himself into tricky situations Jeeves saves him from. It's seriously hilarious, their dialogs are an absolute delight and Wooster's utterly eccentric world of the idle rich is captivating and extremely well-captured. The books are formulaic so having read one is having read them all. That being said, both Much Obliged, Jeeves and Aunts Aren't Gentlemen are absolutely excellent and I'd be sorry to miss out on any book by Wodehouse, formulaic or not. I'm well aware of the existence of the TV show starring Stephen Fry as Jeeves and Hugh Laurie as Wooster, which I'll most likely start watching very soon. I sure hope they've done something different with the characters as I'll be reading the books and wouldn't want to be told the same story twice.

I also finished Author, Author by David Lodge. I'm not sure it was such a wise choice to start with this book as an introduction to Lodge. The novel is in fact a biography of Henry James in the form of a novel so the voice was really James' and not the author's. It was enjoyable enough, even though I came to dislike the author, the secondary characters were interesting enough to keep me going. At least, it convinced me I absolutely need to try Oscar Wilde next year as I've delayed this discovery long enough.

In terms of movies, I saw a few but only two stood out. Coco avant Chanel (2009) isn't a very good movie - it's a romance, and romances bore me to tears unless they're funny. This one wasn't. Still, Gabrielle's personality won me over, she's a woman who knows what she's capable of, is honest to the point of bluntness, and doesn't accept charity from anyone on the grounds that she's a woman. She's an orphan and laughs at the eccentricities of the idle rich while she makes sure she finds a job to look after herself. At the turn of the 20th century, it's quite remarkable. She freed women from corsets and created pieces of clothing that were both comfortable and classy so women could breathe and laugh.

It Happened one Night (1934) is believed to be the first screwball comedy - it's one of these movies I'd always planned on watching but up till now I was always keeping it for last as I've reached the end of my list of screwball comedies to check out. Claudette Colbert plays Ellie, an heiress who flees her father's tyranny, meets Peter (Clark Gable playing a journalist) on her way to New York and after a while, falls for him. I've expressed my dislike for Clark Gable before but I'll admit he's actually pretty good in this picture. Their exchanges are quite funny for a while as Ellie does everything in her power to escape Peter whom she doesn't like but as in all screwballs, initial negative reaction leads to witty banter which in its turn leads to realization of true feelings. Colbert is a great actress, I'm glad I finally watched a movie with her.

Have you ever felt that a work of fiction had been created for you and just for you? It's actually different from loving a work to pieces, I'm talking about things you had no idea were in you but which a work of fiction made you realize had been here for as long as you could remember but you didn't have enough vocabulary to express it accurately? It happened to me once with The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst, it was terrifying. And it's happened to me this week again, with music. This time I don't feel terror as much as relief. Django Reinhardt's music, The The Temperance Seven's music and Chris Barber's music are simply me. I've beaten around the bush for so long, feeling it was here, closer to who I was but not quite and then I stumbled upon them and it was a complete shock. Finally. Home. Reinhardt pretty much created gypsy jazz, The Temperance Seven and Chris Barber make the most incredibly catchy big band music ever. The Temperance Seven's rendition of The Charleston may just be my favourite song. I want to learn how to dance the Charleston so bad. It reminded me of Mad Men. In My Old Kentucky Home, an episode from season three, Pete and Trudy dance to that. They're complete show-offs but I would kill to be them for just the duration of this dance. So here are several things:

First of all, a contemporary rendition of Reinhardt's Minor Swing:

Django Reinhardt performing The Sheik of Araby:

Chris Barber and his band performing Bobby Shaftoe:

The Temperance Seven's rendition of The Charleston and Black Bottom:

And finally Pete and Trudy dancing to an instrumental version of The Charleston:

That's likely to be my last post of 2009. Have excellent fun with the rest of December, I'll catch you next year!

Sibylle

Why Rachel Berry's a role model

2009-12-15T16:18:00.012+01:00

I'm not done with Glee. Not yet. I've already said what I thought about the show so I won't say it again. But I still think Rachel Berry (played by the incredible Lea Michele) is one of the best things to happen to television in years.

Here is an article explaining why she's such an amazing role model:

"All of the pieces were there for her character to be a power-hungry manipulator in the mold of a Tracy Flick or a sad-sack Cinderella of a social outcast who only comes alive and sheds her wallflower ways when she sings. But Rachel Berry is neither. She’s written as a complex, mercurial character. She films MySpace Le Mis tributes in her bedroom and announces to the school celibacy club that, believe it or not, high school girls want sex every bit as much as boys do. She can throw a diva hissy fit over not getting a coveted solo in one scene and then extend her hand in friendship to her former tormentor and the girlfriend of her crush in the next. And I love her for it.

How utterly refreshing is it to see a young female primetime character whose entire focus or major story arc doesn’t revolve around relationship drama and/or getting/keeping/deceiving/ditching a boy? Sure, Rachel pines for the sweetly dumb Finn, but she’s pragmatically resigned to his current status as Quinn’s baby daddy-to-be. And Rachel has bigger fish to fry anyway. She’s convinced that she’s going to be a star and damned if girl doesn’t have the ambition, confidence and straight-up vocal chops to back up her Broadway dreams.

Sure, Rachel’s got her flaws. She’s bossy, abrasive and high maintenance, but these are all tempered by self awareness. She knows she’s bossy, abrasive and high maintenance and will candidly own up to it. And she’s also achingly vulnerable – admitting that she wants glee club to succeed because being part of something special makes you special by proxy, confiding in Puck that her problem is that she wants everything too much and harboring an unspoken but all-too-evident fear that it’s only for the sake of her talent that people deign to associate with her at all. The insecurity behind the theatrics is more than enough to offset her occasion bouts of know-it-all-ism and social tone deafness.

Glee might be a giddy, implausible (Terri’s fake pregnancy, Sue Sylvester’s, well, everything), over-the-top romp, but Rachel rings true as complicated young woman who knows exactly who she is, but still struggles to balance meeting her own self-imposed type-A expectations with her desire for peer acceptance and friendship. TV and especially young women who watch TV need more Rachel Berrys to relate to."

And here's proof of Lea Michele's talent, her rendition of Don't Rain on My Parade. Lea is the only person who has ever made me consider giving Broadway theatre yet another chance. Lea has just been nominated for a Golden Globe. My vote goes to her.

Between the lines

2009-12-12T23:21:00.011+01:00

I think I'd like to post little updates about things before posting my usual "this is what I enjoyed reading/watching/listening to recently."

I'd been meaning to read P.G. Wodehouse for a long while now and it's only recently that I decided to borrow an omnibus from the library. Long story short - I was in the middle of Much Obliged, Jeeves when I decided to check out the group dedicated to P.G. Wodehouse on LibraryThing, The Drones Club. I read a few posts and a few of my favourites were written by Rule42 so I checked his/her profile which is very detailed and in which he/she gives an extensive list of his/her favourite authors. I agreed with a lot of what was said about literature in general and our tastes (humour, humanism) seem to match quite a bit (even though we only have two books in common, both by Evelyn Waugh (whom I've never liked but I might give him yet another chance, religion is my problem when it comes to him). So I did my research and added a lot of books to my list before heading for the library. Here's my To-Be-Read Pile:

1. Wodehouse Omnibus 5 (to finish, I have two stories left, having read the novels)
2. The Rachel Papers - Martin Amis (Rule42 loves his father but I figured I might as well add Martin's first book to my pile as well)
3. Jeeves in the Offing - P.G. Wodehouse
4. Something Fresh - P.G. Wodehouse
5. Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K Jerome (this one was here before I "met" Rule42)
6. The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters (finally! I had to make a reservation for this one as all the copies are impossible to get hold of unless you specifically have it put aside for you)
7. The Grand Sophy - Georgette Heyer (this one was here before as well, I don't like Heyer much, I've read two books by her and her heroines are so weak, she seems to be a solid favourite for many people though and I'd hate to miss out so I'm giving her another chance)
8. Trouble for Lucia - E.F. Benson (was here before - it's not even the beginning of the series but that's all I could find at the library when I went)
9. The Old Devils - Kingsley Amis (his son Martin's favourite)
10. Crome Yellow - Aldous Huxley (best known for A Brave New World which I couldn't find)
11. The Code of the Woosters - P.G. Wodehouse
12. Author, Author - David Lodge (I wanted Changing Places, which is the first book in a series but this will do, it sounds interesting. This line in the blurb won me over: "Thronged with vividly drawn characters, some of them with famous names, Author! Author! presents a fascinating panorama of literary and theatrical life in late Victorian England.")
13. The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut (this line in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction won me over: "A fine and complex satire about the folly of mistaking good luck for the favour of God". Also, a reviewer on Amazon said "if you've never read Vonnegut, this is the place to start")
14. Swing Swing Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman - Firestone (apparently the definitive biography of the man, I love his music so much)
15. Burr - Gore Vidal (oh dear, can I just say, FINALLY! I've been wanting to read Vidal for the longest time but I never knew where to start. Well, this is it! I was going to start with his essays but couldn't track a decent collection anywhere so I settled for fiction. Burr is the first in a series of chronicles of the US entitled "Narratives of Empire". It wasn't the first to be published but it's the first chronologically. Historical fiction at last. Took me a while to find something I desperately wanted to read in that genre but I'm absolutely looking forward to reading it!)

I also entered a contest here to win a copy of Thank You, Jeeves in its Everyman Wodehouse edition (a gorgeous hardcover book). Fingers crossed as I'm planning on collecting them all in this edition but don't have much money, being a student.

I have to dash - today's Dissertation Day, I'm currently analyzing how the "in the next episode" trailers at the end of Sense and Sensibility (2008) and Emma (2009) participate in the dramatization of the story. Great fun!

I didn't buy or borrow this but I thought the title was most appropriate. Be dangerous with me?

Sibylle

2009-11-19T08:33:00.003+01:00

The title of this blog, as I explained when I opened it, is a direct reference to Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, one of my favourite novels. Here it is in its entirety:

But from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine; she read all such works as heroines must read to supply their memories with those quotations which are so serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives.

Follows a very dull list of quotations that are so generic they couldn't be useful to anybody (which is the point). Catherine, despite everything, is the heroine of this book. I am personally in training for a heroine - always trying to be a better person, and this journal is my attempt to be just that, through works of fiction because I'm a great believer in the power of texts (be they books, movies, shows, music) to change lives. As you've probably noticed, they're changing mine everyday!

Happy Birthday!

2009-11-18T11:05:00.004+01:00

In Training for a Heroine turns 1 today! I'm obviously still in training and looking forward to a new and exciting year. This blog has proven to be everything I imagined: a place for me to talk about things I'm passionate about in the way that suits me best. I have never ever seen it as work so let's hope I'll have as much fun with it as I do now. I wish I could expand it, buy a new layout and perhaps a domain. We'll see how it goes. In the meantime, please help yourself to some coconut cake!

Background music: The Andrews Sisters

Sibylle

My God! How the Money Rolls in!

2009-11-17T20:21:00.025+01:00

>>>CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

Hey there! This journal always reminds me of how much I love my life. So here I am, listening to the amazing Boswell Sisters and writing about some of my most recent delights.

I read a great book entitled Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties, written by Lucy Moore. I read another book about the 20s earlier this year (also excellent), Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern by Joshua Zeitz. However, while the latter focuses exclusively on women in the 20s, the former is about the 20s as a whole in the United States, or at least the gist of it. It works only if you include precise portraits of precise people and include them in a broader narrative of what happened on a national level. Lucy Moore does that very well, the word "biography" is really accurate - you learn as much about Al Capone's life , Bessie Smith's career (I loved that part of the book) as you do about Black Tuesday, the Scopes trial and the revival of the Ku Klux Klan. I like reading about this decade a lot, as you may have noticed, because in a way, it's a completely anachronistic era, sandwiched between two world wars, full of extremes. I like the cultural aspect of it a lot - a lot of the music and a lot of the films, but Moore makes it clear the decade was only roaring for a certain category of people only. In short, if you were white and could afford the excess, you could probably have a good time in the 20s. Not so much for the majority of people, though. I found it interesting that in her portrayal of the Fitzgeralds, Lucy Moore differs a bit from Joshua Zeitz. While Zeitz's section devoted to the couple is more complete, Moore's understanding of them is perhaps greater. They sure had an interesting life and even if a lot of it wasn't happy, it becomes clear really quickly that they did enjoy a great part of it. That's completely out of topic but the covers to both the paperback and the hardback editions are gorgeous. I could find no information about the artist, though - such a shame. Lucy Moore's bibliography is divided into chapters and she adds helpful comments for people to go further - I certainly will.

I also read two of Philip Pullman's books - The Tin Princess, which is the last book in the Sally Lockhart series, and Count Karlstein, a part novel part graphic novel book. I enjoyed them both, although my favourite book by him will probably forever be The Tiger in the Well, the third book in the Sally Lockhart series. In The Tin Princess, Sally doesn't make more than an appearance as the focus is on a much younger heroine - as usual, the plot is challenging as the political intricacies are very hard to understand but I feel are worth it in the end. The characters are really full of life and colourful even though they're not as developed as the characters from former books are, which does make them look like stereotypes. I thought the end was completely and utterly ridiculous, it reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe, and not in a good way. Still, I found enough to enjoy.
Count Karlstein was a lot better. I was very pleasantly surprised at all the author could do in such few pages. The book was so funny, to begin with. Two girls escape their uncle's castle where a terrible end awaits them and they meet several characters while on the run. It's a parody of Gothic literature, which is always hilarious anyway, and in this the characters are simply wonderful. A woman named Miss Davenport made a lasting impression on me.

I read another good graphic novel - Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon Hale, her take on the fairytale, in which Rapunzel saves herself and wouldn't be out of place in a saloon. The book was hilarious - fairytale clichés are poked fun at, and the story is highly entertaining. Here's what may be my favourite comic strip:

Now to moving pictures. I haven't seen a movie I liked in its entirety in a long, long while. The Purchase Price (1932) was a complete mess and yet some scenes were enjoyable on their own if you can forget the general structure and think of it as a series of shorts starring one of my favourite actresses, Barbara Stanwyck. However, I literally fell in love with the first part of Blonde Crazy (1931) starring James Cagney and the fantastic Joan Blondell. I must say I was really impressed with James Cagney's acting, I will definitely watch more movies with him. Bert (Cagney) makes sure Anne (Blondell) gets a job and that's how they meet. Very quickly, though, Bert reveals himself as a con with a heart and he convinces Anne to join him in tricking rich people (some very clever tricks there, my favourite being one in which Bert manages to steal a very expensive bracelet by placing it on a rich man's account and then lying about his identity to retrieve it once he goes to the rich man's place to take the bracelet away from the servants). The first half was so enjoyable - I don't think I have EVER seen that much slapping in a movie in my entire life. Anne doesn't take anything from Bert, when he's going to far, her answer is simple: she makes him think he's tricked her too but then she delivers a witty line, slaps him, and leaves. It must happen more than 10 times in the movie. The sexual innuendo is extremely funny as well as Bert's lines are barely toned down. Some scenes are complete classics: at some point, Bert tries to enter the bathroom when Anne is taking a bath, the audience sees both Anne in her bath and Bert at the door, then Bert leaves and tries to find the money Anne has hidden... in her bra. The moralistic end was a huge disappointment, and I do mean huge because I was enjoying myself until they decided to turn this movie into yet another sentimental "I'll wait for you forever while you go to prison for your crimes" story. It deserved better and I wish the director, Roy del Ruth, would have developed his vision until the very end. Shame for a pre-code.

James Cagney and Joan Blondell.

TV-wise, I gave up on two shows: Mad Men and Glee. I've always had a love/hate relationship with Mad Men but you can be sure I'm giving up for good now. This show has no point of view. You can't root for any of the characters - Joan makes quite a lot of racist comments in the second season, Pete is a rapist - I'd like to think the creator is saying that a rapist isn't special, you can't recognize him. A rapist is your milkman, a rapist is your co-worker, a rapist is your neighbour. I don't think the show is that smart, though, let's face it. Don and Betty, I have so many issues with these two I don't even want to go there. And the show has no point of view. It just films that, and moves on to the next shot. I hate this show. That's not being subtle, that's being in denial.

Glee. Oh dear, Glee. I watched it for quite a few episodes because it was catchy (clearly not my type of music as you may have noticed but still), the actors are obviously very dedicated and also I loved the characters. Rachel is one of the main characters - she gets a lot of criticism for being focused, for knowing what she wants and for going for it because she knows that if she's not the one who's going to audition for a part and been given more solos, nobody's going to do it for her. I personally see nothing wrong with that. Go Rachel. No, she doesn't need your help and she does what she wants. So obviously people hate her. Because she's her own person and she's a girl. Quinn is a cheerleader who knows what she wants and she's mean. People hated her at first, and then loved her because, guess what, Quinn is pregnant and she's lost about it. Quinn needs help, so Quinn is loved.
See where I'm going here?
Another BIG issue for me: Emma. Emma is a woman who works at the school the glee club is at. She's in love with a teacher who's married. He's miserable with his wife. Emma is the kind of person I want to shake and yell at. She longs to be with Will, but Will is married. So what does Emma do? She says yes when a complete ass she doesn't even like proposes to her. Because that's what women do in 2009. Right? WRONG. I can't believe they're actually writing a female character who prefers to be married to a guy she hates than be on her own and make her own happiness.
And then there's Sue. Sue is a witty character. She's funny because she's entirely mean and completely focused on what she wants: to win. Sue gets excellent one-liners and everything that comes out of her mouth is quotable and witty. Right? WRONG. Because Sue is so incredibly over-the-top and delivers deadpan lines like nobody's business, she can get away with racism. I'm going to quote an excellent review I found on a blog:

“Oh, but they’re just using humour to defuse tension when dealing with complex issues.” No, they are not, they are using humour to avoid dealing with complex issues. People who really think like this watch Glee and have their norms reinforced, the takeaway from the show being that, yeah, being racist and ableist and sexist is fine and dandy. People who don’t share these norms get to watch Glee and not have to confront the realities of how damaging these norms are, because the show glosses over them to make them all fuzzy and family friendly.

Here’s the thing: When you are in a position of privilege, you really do need to be reminded of that. You need to see the way in which your privilege can be harmful, can be a tool of oppression. If you don’t, you aren’t going to learn about how to manage your privilege. Glee does not make people uncomfortable (unless they are extremely aware of these issues). It just uses oppression as a humour vehicle. Which, can I say, yuck?"

So I stopped watching Glee. A few catchy songs don't make it okay.

Speaking of catchy songs, I know I've already mentioned Louis Prima here but he's truly one of my favourite singers. Louis, Keely Smith and Sam Butera would probably the three singers I would bring with me on a desert island because if we have to die, at least let's die swinging. Their songs are hysterical. Angelina and There'll Be No Next Time are some of my all-time favourites. I love singers who have so much fun they constantly ad-lib. That's music for me.

LISTEN HERE

Sam: But he took me to see
that little friend of mine

Louis: Oh that little motha'

Sam: hahaha DISTRICT JUDGE

Louis: I remember him

Sam: ROOM 229!!

Louis: Yeah! He was crazy!

Sam: He said sam
Your payments are wayyy behind
I said don't worry judge
It won't happen next time

Louis: What'd he say?

Sam: He said mmmmmmmmmmm Next time
There'll... be no next time
You're going to jail right now.

That's it! Tell me quick, wasn't that a kick in the head?

Groucho Marx

Sibylle

Out and About (?)

2009-11-05T10:13:00.008+01:00

This is a depressing post. I'm in Oxford and I'm a student. That means I don't have a salary at the end of each month and that means I'm not too far from London but not that close either. I'm going to list all the things I'm missing out on this year either because of money or because I don't feel like going back to Oxford alone in the middle of the night after a show.

1) Chuck Berry in concert in Oxford (New Theatre). That's what hurts the most, because I don't even know when he's going to tour again. Money problem and I only found out recently so the seats that remain are pretty dreadful and I would probably be better off listening to The Chess Box in my room for I doubt I'll see much of him from row R seat 16...

♥

2) John Barrowman in La Cage aux Folles in London (Playhouse Theatre). I could have gone to a matinée and be back in Oxford early in the evening but it doesn't erase the fact that it's very expensive.

3) The Puppini Sisters in London (Pigalle Club). The show is incredibly cheap (£20) but it starts at 8pm and hotel rooms are so expensive in Piccadilly, I couldn't possibly pay for one so I'd have to go back to Oxford on my own in the middle of the night after the show.

4) The Rat Pack Live from Las Vegas in Oxford. It's a musical about Frank, Sammy and Dean with a real live band. Expensive. It's actually not that expensive compared to the others and it's in Oxford, reviews are very good, although some are mixed. Ultimately, though, I think I'll pass. I'd rather listen to Frank, Dean and Sammy, not people imitating them, even if most of the audience must go for the ambiance.

I can't believe I'm not a millionaire.

Sibylle

Sibylle: A Manifesto

2009-10-27T21:51:00.009+01:00

I started this blog on November 18, 2008, almost a year ago. So far, I've let my tastes speak for me but I think perhaps it's time I come out into the open. You won't find any picture of me but I think self-definition is important.

I'm a humanist. I'll take Wikipedia's definition because it's the broadest, strangely enough: "Twenty-first century Humanism tends to strongly endorse human rights, including reproductive rights, gender equality, social justice, and the separation of church and state." I'm an agnostic atheist ("the view of those who do not claim to know of the existence of any deity, but do not believe in any.") I tell people I'm an agnostic so they leave me alone.

Therefore I'm a feminist. "Women are not born, they're made." Hence my argument about why we still need feminism today: because a toddler doesn't care if the toy is pink or blue, because dolls are for everybody and cars for everybody. Society imposes its vision of gender differences from cradle to grave. I'm against that. It all goes against self-determination, and this for me is everything. The right to be whomever you are. Since we're talking about feminism, I might as well add right now: for me, getting married is admitting that you need state recognition for your love. I don't need the state to recognize my love for anybody or recognize my right to live or do whatever with whomever. I don't need marriage. On a practical side, divorces are too expensive, and I believe people should stay together if they feel they want to, not because they have to. In short, I don't believe in marriage.
I don't believe in having children either. I can be passionate about a lot of things and people but becoming a mother is beyond me. I refuse this. It's slavery: work for no pay, and actually it's expensive. I don't want my life to revolve around one person, I don't need this sense of purpose. My purpose in life, as far as I'm concerned, is to be happy and be the person I am.
I believe in open relationships, in catching moments of happiness whenever, I believe in being open and true and honest.

The reason I love Harry Potter so much is because it gave me, as Time magazine puts it, "social, moral and political inspiration". You can change what you think isn't right. There's an alternative to doing nothing and stare at the world. Take action. And the reason why I love Hermione is because she's the perfect example of this: "Get all the education you can, but then, do something. Don't just stand there, make it happen." (Lee Iacocca) Education is important because it gives you your weapons to be the change you want for the world. That's why I want to teach.

Sentimentality saddens me. It's terrible and yet so many people indulge in it. I avoid sentimentality at all costs. When I tell people I'm working on Jane Austen, I can see they think I'm on their side - the side of the people who think Jane Austen is sentimental, somebody who writes for women (oh dear), places marriage at the center of things (oh dear) and loves romantic things (oh dear). She's not any of these things. She's witty and would mock so many people's idea of her today. I don't read her for escapism, I read her before her writings are not neat, because Elizabeth fell in love with Darcy when she saw how grandiose Pemberley was, because Brandon fell for Marianne because he reminded her of his childhood sweetheart, because Tilney fell for Catherine because it was obvious she liked him. I love Jane because none of her marriages work. I love Jane because she laughs at people swooning over wet shirts, I love Jane because she's daring. I love Jane because she's funny. I love Jane because she's on the side of justice and because her wittiest characters always win. I love Jane because she would laugh at Twilight, and yet she's one of Stephenie Meyer's favourite writers (another one who hasn't read the same books I did, obviously). She would laugh at people relaxing on a Sunday night while watching a period drama. She hinted at things they don't pay attention to: people died from a cold, poverty was everywhere and could happen overnight, women were trapped and went from father to husband. I love Jane for all these reasons, not because I want to live in early 19th century (oh dear) and swoon each time I reread Pride and Prejudice because it's genteel.

I don't think anything was "better back then" or worse, "simpler". I love a lot of black and white movies (the idea of "classic" is disturbing, like there's the canon and then the rest, we can do better than that, come on) because the stories are great, not because they're glamorous. Love Crazy is the story of a couple having fun, The Shop Around the Corner is the story of two people who fall for each other because they really have things in common, mainly literature.

I don't think television is not as good as cinema. Television is just as good. Gilmore Girls for me is the story of women who are a lot like me, who reference works of fiction all the time because they know how much they influence their lives. It's the story of a woman who raised a daughter alone, of independent women who are exceptional because they are interesting for themselves, not because being paired up makes them interesting.

I'm passionate about good food. However, I don't like chocolate, coffee or most teas. Now that I'm at it, I don't drink alcohol, I don't smoke and I don't do drugs. Chocolate, tea and alcohol taste awful. Coffee smells incredible but tastes awful. Cigarettes smell awful. I'm not into destroying myself, I love life. Good food is high on my list of priorities.

I think most of all I believe in wit. Because there are so many funny details in life to miss out on these moments of fun. I'm looking for laughter in almost everything I do. Laughter and honesty, even bluntness. Because "people who are shocked need to be shocked more often" (Mae West said that, hear hear). Wit is hard to achieve because it raises you above a situation and makes you an observer, even if you're involved. I believe witty people are the best because they're subversive in the best way.

And this is Sibylle in a nutshell! I don't believe in changing for anybody. I know who I am. No excuses, no apologies, no regrets (that's Brian Kinney in Queer as Folk) - to me that means one has to be the best person they can the first time around and then, I say, it's take it or leave it.

Sibylle

Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood

2009-10-26T13:37:00.004+01:00

I'm just back from the library and here's a teaser of things to come, the introduction to what I'm sure will be one of my favourite reads this year, Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood by Mick LaSalle.

"The best era for women on screen was not the forties, as has been commonly assumed. The best era had nothing to do with ladies with big shoulder pads and bad hairdoes watching their boyfriends light two cigarettes at the same time. It had nothing to do with women apologizing for their strength in the last ten minutes of every film. It had nothing to do with weeping and constant sacrifice and misery.
Those movies may be enjoyable. We may like those movies. But they don't represent the best in women's pictures.
The best era for women's pictures was the pre-Code era, the five years between the point that talkies became widely accepted in 1929 through July 1934, when the dread and draconian Production Code became the law in Hollywoodland. Before the Code, women on screen took lovers, had babies out of wedlock, got rid of cheating husbands, enjoyed their sexuality, held down professional positions without apologizing for their self-sufficiency, and in general acted the way many of us think women only acted after 1968.
They had fun. Tha's why the Code came in. Yes, to a large degree the Code came in to prevent women from having fun. It was designed to put the genie back in the bottle - and the wife back in the kitchen."

And that's when you know you've found a kindred spirit. I have a class today and I have a translation to finish but I can't wait to read the entire book!

2009-10-23T12:36:00.004+02:00

Quick post to urge you all to head over to Obscure Classics - some truly excellent posts to be found there these days and many movies to add to my list of films to watch. Now go read and watch, and don't forget the popcorn. Shoo, shoo!

Charles Farrell and Mary Duncan on a still from The River (1929) by the wonderful Frank Borzage.

So when you said "I'll talk to you soon" I thought you meant "soon" like "soon", my mistake

2009-10-23T00:28:00.012+02:00

>>>CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

Long story short: I'll be studying at the University of Oxford till June. I have a second dissertation to write this year (last year was about humour in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, this year it's about the 2007, 8 and 9 TV adaptations of 5 of her novels (everything except Pride and Prejudice, thank goodness, and that includes Emma that is currently being broadcast here in the UK as we speak) and I'm taking some classes on the side, just for myself. One of these classes is a general introduction to feminist theory. It's honestly one of the best classes I've ever taken: the lectures are open to everybody, even the general public who doesn't attend the University of Oxford so if you live in Oxford, I strongly recommend joining us - they take place each week on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2 to 3pm in the Exam Schools (on High Street) in Room 11. The lecturers change every week and we focus on three different authors or directors each time. The lectures are very engrossing and I've learned a lot. They have me wonder why I didn't pick Women's Studies as my major.

Moving out has proven to be terribly time-consuming, which explains my silence. I'm trying to find a new rhythm and it's taking me a while but I'm still breathing and therefore I still need to talk about exciting things somewhere. My #1 reason for picking Oxford was that I could pretend I'd be attending Hogwarts and so far it's working really well. It's so easy to pretend I did receive my letter from Hogwarts - the center of town reminds me of Hogsmeade, it's a medieval village, really. My College is New College, one of the few whose common name isn't religious so I'm quite proud of that, it's really gorgeous. The scene in which Mad-Eye turns Draco into a ferret in the movie adaptation of Goblet of Fire was filmed in my college. You can watch it here. Haven't climbed up the tree yet, though, but just you wait.

The Radcliffe camera. Great loo, helpful staff.

One of the first things I did when moving in was join the local library - it's heaven not having to buy all the books I want to read. The first book I borrowed was Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. You'll perhaps remember that The Hunger Games, the first book in the trilogy, has been one of my best YA reads this year so I couldn't wait to get my hands on the sequel, Catching Fire. The problem is that Catching Fire is the second book in a trilogy and it shows. The thing is, I wanted to explain precisely why the book didn't live up to my expectations but rather made me even more impatient to read the third one but, as usual, I found somebody else who already said it all for me. Read this excellent review right here: this is what I think.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer got such positive reviews everywhere, perhaps my expectations were once again too high for it was really disappointing. It wasn't long enough for me to feel like I knew the characters and books actually don't play that big a part in this novel, the title is a tad misleading, although it was fascinating to learn about the Nazi Occupation of the Channel Islands (you can read something about it here on Wikipedia).
So it seems my only comfort in books for pleasure these days has come from an old friend: Angela Carter, whose Magic Toyshop was simply delightful. Her grasp of language is incredible - I know I've already stressed it but it needs to be said. I completely fell in love with the heroine of the book, Melanie, who has to grow in an oppressive environment and manages to do so in very surprising ways. I was really flabbergasted to find out the book was adapted as a movie in 1987. Out of curiosity, I'm really eager to see the result - the atmosphere of Angela Carter's books is so eerie I always feel animated movies would do them more justice.

Moving pictures now. Not much to say, I'm afraid. It's so very hard to find good things to watch, there are so few and far between. The first season of Skins did make a impression, though. I find this show refreshing - it focuses on a group of teenagers living in Bristol. The direction is completely different from what you're likely to have seen before, it's an odd mixture of extreme realism (in that the topics and the way they're dealt with are authentic and ring true) and very staged moments that gives the show a pretty unique visual identity. My favourite character is a girl named Cassie who is actually responsible for a lot of these staged moments - she's a tragic figure and she brings a Hitchcockian quality to everything she does, which makes for heartbreaking viewing. I recommend the show - even if it's a little too soapy sometimes, I'm very glad I found it.

Cassie Ainsworth played by Hannah Murray, who attends the uni of Oxford as well, it's a small world after all.

Some music to warm your heart. You should know my taste by now so I'm coming up with an artist who's a bit off the beaten path for me, but whom I adore unconditionally. Roy Orbison. Absolutely wonderful, I can't get enough of him. His voice is pure honey and his songs are incredibly generous - he gives and gives and gives. Most artists celebrate or narrate, Roy Orbison just showers the listener with gifts wrapped into notes, it's beautiful. He makes me want to drive my Ford Anglia convertible to new places.

Only the lonely
Know the way I feel tonight
Only the lonely
Know this feelin' ain't right

There goes my baby
There goes my heart
They're gone forever
So far apart

LISTEN HERE

Have a good weekend!

The one and only Emma Thompson. Role model, really.

Sibylle

Thoughts on feminism

2009-10-22T23:23:00.003+02:00

I haven't posted anything here in ages. I love this journal dearly and it saddens me that my life seems to be too busy these days for me to take the time to properly talk about something. Frankly, it hurts, and you should probably expect a new post very soon because I can't go on like this for very long.
I just want to type something today because I was reading The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter (really good read, my third book by her and she's impressive every time) when someone told me they hated her, "she's such a feminist". This had me wondering:

Why do we still need feminism today?

Because when you enter a toy shop to buy a gift for a newborn baby, they still ask you if it's for a boy or a girl.

Talk to you very soon!

Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure: Potter Journal

2009-08-11T12:33:00.003+02:00

SIBYLLEVANCE@LJ

This is something I've been wanting to do for ages and I finally took the plunge but a few days ago. I opened my Potter journal on LiveJournal, where I'll be talking about all things Harry Potter - my reactions to news, my thoughts about specific books, chapters, quotes, movies, events in fandom, excellent fanfictions, fanarts, music. Everything Potter is going to go on this journal and this journal only. I really need a dedicated space. So have a look if you're a fan of Jo Rowling. In order to comment on the Potter journal, you need a LiveJournal account - it's free and simple, and LiveJournal has some excellent communities you can join and users you can watch so I think it's really a great opportunity for you to discover all this. I have no current plans to reopen the comments on In Training for a Heroine, though. I also have no plans to give up In Training for a Heroine, on the contrary, I'm thinking about expanding it. I think that's it! I'm really excited about this, so let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.

If music be the food of love, play on. - 60s Part Two

2009-08-05T09:45:00.023+02:00

Part two's here! Just click on the name of the band to hear the music. I realise that most of these are British Invasion bands, so perhaps I should just have called this "The British Invasion post", but it wouldn't have been accurate because some of these bands are American, for example The Byrds (although lots of people think they're actually British - they were indeed very influenced by the British invasion) The Turtles, The Archies and 1910 Fruitgum Company. Bear in mind that several of the bands I'm listing kept on recording way after the 60s: my only criteria is that they started in the 60s.

The Archies
Sugar, ah honey honey
You are my candy girl
And you've got me wanting you.

The Tremeloes
Come on, twist little sister
To get that good night kiss.

The Byrds

Now, I've got to say
That it's not like before,
And I'm not gonna play
Your games any more.
After what you did I can't stay on.
And I'll probably feel a whole lot better
When you're gone.

Freddie and the Dreamers

I'm telling you now
I'll say what you wanna hear
I'll be telling you for many a year
I'm in love with you

1910 Fruitgum Company
Put your hands in the air,
Simple Simon says,
Shake them all about,
Simple Simon says,
Do it when Simon says,
Simple Simon says,
And you will never be out.

The Searchers
Sugar and spice and all things nice
Kisses sweeter than wine
Sugar and spice and all things nice
You know that little girl is mine.

The Troggs
Wild thing...
you make my heart sing...
You make everything Groovy
I said wild thing...

The Turtles
Go lightly from the ledge,
Babe Go lightly on the ground
I'm not the one you want,
Babe I'll only let you down

Peter and Gordon
Birds sing out of tune
And rain clouds hide the moon
I'm OK, here I'll stay
With my loneliness
I don't care what they say I won't stay
In a world without love

The Zombies
Well, no one told me about her
The way she lied
Well, no one told me about her
How many people cried
But it's too late to say you're sorry
How would I know, why should I care?
Please don't bother trying to find her
She's not there.

The Yardbirds
To thrill you with delight,
I'll give you diamonds bright.
There'll be things that will excite,
To make you dream of me at night.
For your love.

The Who
Why don't you all fade away
And don't try to dig what we all say I'm not trying to cause a big sensation
I'm just talkin' 'bout my generation.

The Mamas and the Papas
They say candy is sweet, but it just can't compete with you, baby.
You've got everything I need and nobody can please like you, you baby.

I think that's it. Turns out I enjoy more pop and more rock than I thought I did. But apart from a select few artists, I don't like contemporary pop and rock at all. I'm giving the names of bands that have nothing to do with one another apart from a decade (The Archies and 1910 Fruitgum Company are bubblegum pop, completely different from the rest) and this list ultimately makes no sense. But here it is anyway. Gordon (as in Peter and Gordon) passed away last month. There is only one surviving member of the Mamas and the Papas and none of the founding members of The Animals is still alive. Some of these bands had a very short career (Gerry and the Pacemakers, for example) but most keep on recording and performing today (The Hollies never stopped and never broke up), which I personally find amazing. I would love to go to a concert some day. The 60s was a very prolific decade - even though it's a shame I'll never get to see the original band members perform, I'm happy to look back now with all the advantages this music can offer without the drawbacks of actually living in this world 50 years ago.

Sibylle

If music be the food of love, play on. - 60s Part One

2009-08-04T07:57:00.005+02:00

Twelfth Night also happens to be my favourite Shakespeare play so I'm glad I can finally quote this excellent work. Today I want to post some more music. Up till now I have posted a lot of different things, but there's a whole era I haven't talked about. I think classic rock and pop from the 60s is one the things I like to listen to the most. I've already posted the Rolling Stones here (they haven't ever made a bad album, I love them, although it's true I'm not too fond of Undercover), I also enjoy early Beatles (before Sgt. Pepper) and early Beach Boys (they lose me after Pet Sounds). I wish I could say something like "I used to listen to my parents' records and I grew up with their music" or something, but this isn't true. My parents aren't interested in music at all and the first CD ever brought into their house was brought by me, so I had to build up my music collection from scratch (same goes for books and movies) which is really expensive when you're a student. In a way, that makes them more my own, I guess. It has made it harder to discover music that isn't popular today (no radio airing, no TV broadcast), but considering my musical taste, I'd say I managed to find what I truly loved nonetheless. So here are some excellent artists I've discovered just recently (everything is recent, obviously) and without whom I cannot live.

The Kinks
I believe that you and me last forever
Oh yeah, all day and nightime yours, leave me never
The only time I feel alright is by your side
Girl I want to be with you all of the time
All day and all of the night

Gerry & the Pacemakers
Don't let the sun catch you cryin'
The night's the time for all your tears
Your heart may be broken tonight
But tomorrow in the morning light
Don't let the sun catch you cryin'

The Animals
We gotta get out of this place
If it's the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
Girl, there's a better life For me and you

Herman's Hermits

I walked her home and she held my hand I knew it couldn't be just a one-night stand
So I asked to see her next week and she told me I could
Somethin' tells me I'm into something good

The Monkees
I thought love was only true in fairy tales
Meant for someone else but not for me.
Love was out to get me
Thats the way it seemed.
Disappointment haunted all my dreams.
Then I saw her face, now I'm a believer
Not a trace of doubt in my mind.
I'm in love, I'm a believer, I couldn't leave her if I tried.

The Hollies
My heart it keeps on beatin'
I know that you've been cheatin'
I know our love could never be now

The Lovin' Spoonful
I've been havin' a sweet dream,
I've been dreamin' since I woke up today,
It's starring me in my sweet dream,
'Cause she's the one that makes me feel this way,
And even if time is passin' me by a lot,
I couldn't care less about the dues you say I got.
Tomorrow I'll pay the dues for dropping my load.
A pie in the face for being a sleepy bull toad.

WATCH OUT FOR PART 2 TOMORROW!

Sibylle

The principal benefit acting has afforded me is the money to pay for my psychoanalysis.

2009-08-03T16:12:00.016+02:00

>>>CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

I really had planned on posting more often: I found good books to read, good music to listen to. The only thing missing and preventing me from posting anything here was that I couldn't find any good movie or show to talk about. Oh, the anguish. It seemed as if I had watched everything I wanted to watch: everything I tried wasn't good enough to be finished, and I was desperate for some quality. I talked about it with a few people and one of them suggested I should try something different, something I don't usually watch. I wondered what I could possibly discover when I remembered that one of the latest books I've read about flappers contained a whole chapter on silent movies in the 20s. Here you go. Clara Bow to the rescue. So I watched It (1927). What a delight this film is! It's a romantic comedy, really, with a radiant Clara Bow whose smile is contagious. She plays a salesgirl who dates the director of the shop she works at but their affair is complicated when he thinks she's unmarried with a baby (in fact, she's been saying the baby's hers to protect a good friend of hers). It's a surprising film: besides being a commentary on women's condition during the 20s (Clara's character, Betty, never betrays her unmarried friend but it's obvious her friend is not considered good enough by the rest of society), it uses many different sets (they're aboard a ship at some point, it's quite original).It was immensely entertaining - the acting is superb (so different from the one used in talkies) and the score written by Carl Davis is excellent, very burlesque and carefree. Clara Bow is immediately loveable and Gary Cooper even makes a small appearance as a reporter (blink and you miss it).

I am currently watching the show True Blood, an adaptation of the Southern Vampire series written by Charlaine Harris, which I am also reading. Had you told me that a few months ago, I would never have believed it. True blood, a synthetic blood invented by the Japanese has allowed vampires to come out into the open and reveal their presence in society to humans since they can now feed without killing humans. Sookie is a waitress at a bar in Bon Temps, a small town in Louisiana, she meets a vampire named Bill , dates him and discovers a whole new world. True Blood is broadcast on HBO and I think the only reason it's produced by HBO is that True Blood shows things you can't possibly show anywhere else. Because you know what? HBO's best kept secret is that True Blood, or even the book series for that matter, isn't about vampires. It's about sex. The characters think about it all the time, do it all the time or if they don't, they talk about it all the time. The books and the show are different; while True Blood is a good adaptation of the books, it added a lot of material to develop the secondary characters. Both are extremely campy, pure entertainment and completely different from what's usually supported by HBO: it's pure fun, there's nothing deeper than that, don't look for a commentary on contemporary society or even on death or anything else. It is very disappointing on that level, I didn't expect it to be quite so shallow. Each book contains several mysteries and the heroine, Sookie Stackhouse, investigates best as she can while dating a vampire and meeting such creatures as werewolves and shapeshifters. Just so you get the picture: in these books, Bubba, a slow-minded vampire is actually Elvis Presley made vampire when he was still alive but heavily influenced by drugs. Nobody's allowed to say his name. Sookie goes to an orgy to investigate on the death of a friend of hers who attended such parties, vampire blood increases your libido so there's a huge market for it, Sookie disguises herself to infiltrate the Fellowship of the Sun, a cult whose mission is to kill all vampires, there's a pretty funny/creepy exorcism taking place in the show. The books are funnier than the show, but just as graphic in terms of sex and blood (it's everywhere). Both are pretty addictive, although I really don't feel comfortable buying either the books or the DVDs of the show, it's entertaining but nothing else. In fact, I'm very ill-at-ease in this world sometimes: everybody's extremely conservative (homophobia, racism are common and most characters are very religious) and yet extremely liberal about sex. It's an odd mixture, which probably explains the success of the series anyway. I think it's fun and frankly an intriguing story but it doesn't go further than that. It feels good getting this off my chest.

I read a few books before starting the Southern Vampire series, and all were excellent. I saw the miniseries Angels in America a few years ago, and it remains one of my favourite. It was high time I read the play the miniseries adapted. I was not disappointed: I was reminded of how essential this work by Tony Kushner is, it questions so many things, the imagery's beautiful and the whole story is of epic proportions. It tackles many important issues while being rooted in the lives of very real characters. I love this play, it changed so much in my life - my only regret is that I never had the opportunity to see it performed on stage.

Tony Kushner

I also read Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War by Virginia Nicholson, which was a terrific read, one of my favourites this year in non-fiction. It focuses on the lives of single British women after the First World War when there was a shortage of men, so to speak. It's brilliant in that Nicholson doesn't shy away from any topic: is it possible to lead a full live outside of marriage and children? By giving many examples of women who led very full and interesting lives (one of them says something beautiful when asked what she would most like to do now at the end of her life, "live this life all over again"), by questioning the importance of sexuality, of marriage and how it doesn't relate to sexuality, of freedom from society's conventions in a time when women were not welcome in important jobs, Nicholson masterly focuses on what's important in showing how a generation of women changed how women looked at themselves and at what their purpose in life should be. Writing a non-fiction book of this kind is always a balancing act: many diary entries are quoted, but Nicholson always gives them as examples to justify her point, so the entries are not overwhelming (journal entries can be tiresome to go through). Her analysis is spot-on and I thoroughly enjoyed this book, for which I am quite grateful.

I also started a series of fantasy books, the first of which is called His Majesty's Dragon. Naomi Novik's books have an very good premise: what if the Napoleonic wars where fought primarily by an air force of dragons? Alternate history is such fun, and I didn't know I would enjoy reading about the Napoleonic wars so much. I must try to find some books by Patrick O'Brian very soon. The first book is excellent - we meet Laurence, an officer in the Navy who's compelled to become an aviator when he captures the egg of Temeraire, a dragon. The friendship between the two has some strong homoerotic undertones: even if the books are heteronormative, Temeraire's jealousy when Laurence becomes interested in a woman is unmistakable. The first book focuses on Temeraire growing up and Laurence adjusting to his new life. It was engrossing and very well-written. I couldn't put this book down, the battles are very interesting to read about, surprisingly, and the characters are very strong morally and believable which makes for good fiction. The world Naomi Novik builds is full of details, beautifully evocative. She has a good sense of the period. I can't wait to buy and read the next books in the series.

Okay. Let's see what I can choose for you to listen to while I'm gone. I talked about the Ultra Lounge series on this blog, and thanks to it I discovered Sam Butera, a terrific saxophonist who often collaborated with Louis Prima. Great entertainer. So here he is for your listening pleasure.

LISTEN HERE

Enjoy August!

Sibylle

The lingerie shortage in this country...

2009-07-20T09:48:00.017+02:00

>>>CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

I am really looking forward to the third season of Mad Men. The first episode will air on August 16 and it seems that this will be the best way to end summer. If you've seen the first two seasons, and only if you've seen them, I strongly recommend watching this video, the 10 most shocking moments of the show so far (and god knows there have been many).It's not just a succession of clips since Matthew Weiner, who created the show, comments on each one of them, along with the actors.

Have you ever heard of Adventureland? It was released this year and it seems only Twilight fangirls have heard of the movie, because it stars Kristen Stewart, of Twilight fame. It's a shame, really, because it's a very sweet, real and smart movie taking place in the 80s. Several teenagers work at an amusement park during the summer and develop relationships in a way that's honest and beautiful. I was really moved by this movie and thought the two leads (Kristen and Jesse Eisenberg) acted really well.

July 2009 for me will be remembered as Potter Madness. The plan was this: read the first six books, then watch the adaptation of Half-Blood Prince, then read Deathly Hallows. That was the challenge and I completed it. Rereading a series that's so close to my heart felt like coming home after a very long day. It felt perfect, right, familiar in the best way. I reminisced on where I was when they were published and the thing is, my reactions are exactly the same as when I read them first. I cried buckets at the end of Half-Blood Prince, laughed at the same jokes, longed to be part of this world, cried in The Forest Again, was anxious for the fate of several characters even though I knew what was going to happen, marvelled at Jo's genius. Being completely immersed in this world for 10 days was just what I needed and this has been the best decision I made all year. The movie adaptation of Half-Blood Prince was beautiful. There's no other word. I finished rereading the book on the 14 and went to see a screening on the 15 at 9:45 and it was the best way to do it. The cinematography is gorgeous, the acting impeccable (the trio has evolved and learnt so much, they're actually good now, so is Tom Felton. The adults are impeccable except for Gambon who's never been my Dumbledore). I missed a few things, no Rufus Scrimgeour meant no "Dumbledore's man through and through" which is, in my opinion, one of the best lines of the entire saga, no "Don't call me coward!" which would have dropped a great hint for the next movie, no battle between Dumbledore's Army, the Order and the Death Eaters,(but they added a scene at the Burrow that was really well acted and chilling), not much explained about where to find the Horcruxes, but the good points were excellent so that's easily forgiven. The score is to die for. You can listen to it for free here. I personally have it on repeat and should buy the CD soon. There is a whole chapter at the end that's not adapted but for me a little gesture said it all and I realised I didn't need this chapter, that was a very smart move. The movie is deeply emotional but also incredibly amusing in the right places and effortlessly so, just like the book. The amount of romance (I for one thought Harry/Ginny in the Room of Requirement was really beautiful and I'm not much of a shipper) and comedy counterbalances nicely with the deeply disturbing plot, this movie's a riot in places. I just couldn't believe how outrageously funny it was, and everything taken directly from the book. The whole thing is so deeply tied up with the fifth and seventh adaptations that I think it would have been smarter to shoot them all after the whole series had been released. The actor who plays Tom Riddle is incredible and has nothing to do with the two-dimensional character we had in Chamber of Secrets. Shame they didn't wait. Bottom line is, this adaptation is beautiful and it's not even just a good adaptation, it's a very, very good movie by itself.

I managed to squeeze in the reading of a book after my Potter Madness this month, and what a book that was! Flapper: a Madcap Story of Sex, Style and Celebrity and the Women Who Made America Modern by Joshua Zeitz is delightful and delicious. I heart the 20s, I want to read more about this decade of absolute freedom and "unaffordable excess" (that's the title of one of the chapters) that came before the Great Depression that ended it all. Zeitz's prose is crystal clear and the book super interesting. It's divided into three parts, and even though it's not explicitly put that way, the first part is about how literature influenced and was influenced by the flapper lifestyle (focusing on the Fitzgeralds, what a life they had, but also Lois Long who wrote articles about her flapper lifestyle), the second about fashion (focusing on Coco Chanel) and the third about cinema (focusing on Clara Bow and Louise Brooks). So now all of Francis Scott Fitzgerald's books are on my list (Zelda was pretty much the quintessential flapper, her yearbook read "Why should all life be work, when we can all borrow. Let's only think of today, and not worry about tomorrow."), along with an impressive number of silent movies. Zeitz made so many good points: how flappers thought only white priviledged women could be like them (when African-Americans invented the dances they all danced and the songs they all sung in the Jazz Age), how it all relates to first-wave feminism (feminists despised this carefree attitude to life because flappers pushed limits but never politically, which would have benefited all women if they did), how the twenties and the flapper lifestyle was an incredibly good era for consumerism. About that, and because I've been obsessing over Mad Men, I found a pretty spot-on description of what advertising was about: "Sell them their dreams. Sell them what they hoped for and longed for and almost despaired of having. Sell them hats by splashing sunlight across them. Sell them dreams - dreams of country clubs and proms and visions of what might happen if only. After all, people don't buy things to have them... They buy hope - hope of what your merchandise might do for them." The San Francisco Chronicle said about the book that it "engagingly blends solid academic research with a pop culture sensibility." Truly excellent book, I learnt so much about a whole era and it has left me hungry for more, which is what the best books do, in my opinion.

What should I leave you with? Ooo, I know! How about The Drifters? I listen to them all year long but they're particularly good during the summer. It's so hard to find a compilation of their songs that's not been remixed but I managed to dig something up.

LISTEN HERE

In the park you hear
The happy sound of the carousel
You can almost taste the hot dogs
French fries they sell
Under the boardwalk
Down by the sea, yeah
On a blanket with my baby
Is where I'll be

Have an extravagant summer!

Sibylle

I mean, I’d like to have a good illness, something different, impressive. Like,"Yeah, I’m not feeling so good, my leg is haunted."

2009-07-10T19:41:00.007+02:00

You can always tell when I'm sick because I simply go back to basics: the Potter books, Gilmore Girls and Billie Holiday. I need my blankie. This year, I added Torchwood: Children of Earth to the mix. I thoroughly recommend this new season, it's more of a political thriller than anything else and the quality has been fantastic so far. I'm nursing a really bad cold and the worst part is that I can't touch the ice cream I've just bought. I hope I'll be back very soon! I was planning on trying a whole new marathon this summer: watch lots of films noirs and read books about the 20s. We'll see how this goes. In the meantime, I hope you're enjoying this summer more than I do. I for one can't wait for fall.

Life's short, talk fast!

Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure

2009-07-03T17:16:00.010+02:00

>>>CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

I know I said I'd be posting more but I didn't expect to be called to work quite so often during the summer. I always welcome the money so my life had to take a backseat for a while. I still have things to talk about, though. The first season of Veronica Mars was so good. I can't believe how dreadful the show was afterwards - what happened? I remember thinking Veronica was one of the best characters I had ever met, along with Mac and Wallace they pretty much made the show. It was pure joy in its first season, so witty, smart and compelling. Please check out this picspam, I feel so nostalgic just looking at it. I miss you, Kristen.

I've just finished a really good book called Debs at War written by Anne de Courcy, which focuses on British debutantes's lives during the Second World War. The narrative relies extensively on extracts from diaries and direct quotes from many former debutantes, who explain how their lives was before 1939 and how much it changed during the War. What struck me most was how funny this book could sometimes be, something I absolutely did not expect. They all have a great sense of humour even reminiscing on the worst. It was full of everyday details and I enjoyed following such different and in a way such similar lives, all compelled to have a sense of purpose when war broke out. I knew a lot of what was described mainly through reading fiction books set in this period but it's still really fascinating realising now so many years later how much a country relied on very dedicated yet simple actions dictated by courage. The main change was work: going from being expected to go from your father's care to your husband's care to being expected to participate in the war effort was a serious change for everybody. As we are reminded at the end of the book, many women found the war liberating as they were able to continue working even after the war and when married, something that simply was forbidden in the interwar years (women were actually fired the minute they married, despite having worked during the First World War). As a consequence, most of the book focuses on the many different jobs those debutantes took in 1939, from nursing to teaching to breaking Enigma to flying planes to working in factories. However, something the author doesn't do is put the stories in perspective: one woman says "even in those days, boyfriends were more important", which is of course only true for the upper-classes. I can't imagine people living in poverty having these many options to work or ever having to choose between respecting curfew and run away to dance at a ball. Since it heavily relies on anecdotes, what I found the most exciting was the diversity: all sorts of things are being talked about and very much related to everyday life - it was simply very easy to get lost in this book. I really recommend it as a companion book to any history book about the Second World War as it explains a lot about what it meant to women on a daily basis.

Who knew the Myrna Loy and William Powell boxset contained such jewels? I saw the last movie, Evelyn Prentice, a few days ago. It was released in 1934, that is the same year as The Thin Man and Manhattan Melodrama. The movie does not disappoint - I must say it's pretty rare to find a boxset of 5 different movies which are all excellent but this one is definitely the real thing. Evelyn (played by Myrna) is the wife of a successful attorney (Powell is wonderful in that role, he had the same one in Manhattan Melodrama) and she crosses the path of a scoundrel, which will change her life. I think it's mainly a movie about guilt, but it was also a compelling mystery, the end completely took me by surprise, I thought it was an excellent twist and kuddos to anyone who realises what's happening before its being spelled out! The film also contains some lovely funny scenes: in one of them, the whole family is exercising at home and having a great exchange of lines.
When I say William Powell and Myrna Loy are among my favourite actors and actresses, I am usually asked about The Thin Man series: the problem is that I don't enjoy mysteries at all, so the parts that for me are the best in the Thin Man series are the ones focusing on Nick and Nora's life as a couple, and the detective plot bores me. On the bright side, I've recently seen the second movie in the series, After the Thin Man, which is my favourite of the series: it devotes more screen time to Nick and Nora and has some absolutely classic scenes. The first one is Nick's surprise birthday party and it superb from beginning to end. It also has a wonderful scene with Nick tracking a murderer while taking the stairs, it's all very slow, without music, and I thought the suspense was excellently played.
Talking about Evelyn Prentice, I have to say something about Una Merkel. It bothers me that secondary roles were often relegated to the margins and given such poor credits. Merkel plays Evelyn's best friend and she absolutely shines in that role, being sensible and very down-to-earth, often very amusing, I thought her performance was remarkable.

The very underrated Una Merkel

This last section about music will be a bit different this time, since I want to talk about a series of CDs focusing on a specific genre instead of about an artist. Have you ever heard of the Ultra-Lounge series? It's a series of 25 CDs that were released by Capitol in the 90s. You can find the complete list here. What's this about? If you've seen "The Jet Set", an episode of the second season of Mad Men (if you're not watching Mad Men you don't know what you're missing or you would) this is pretty much it. Lounge is an attitude: enjoying the good life by the swimming-pool with your sunglasses on, sipping a martini and watching girls in bikinis passing by. There are several things wrong with this picture. I'll quote a pretty spot-on reviewer on Amazon: "I suppose if I lived in the "swinging" era of night clubs, pointy bras, martinis, and ashtrays on every table, I would find it all a big drag; I don't smoke, don't drink, and I'm a feminist. But, at this safe distance, the swinging, Rat Pack era is an archaelogical trove of great fun." The keyword here is FUN. If these CDs aren't fun, I don't know what is! Think about it: Christmas music given a mambo twist, it's the lyrics without the spirit or rather Christmas in July, literally, the James Bond theme, Chihuahua, Dean Martin, Louis Prima, Julie London, Nat King Cole, Vic Damone, a track called "Music to be murdered by" introduced by Alfred Hitchcock. There's nothing more evocative and perhaps kitsch than these CDs - it's laughter in a slipcase, life with a twist and on the rocks. I'm posting my favourites here, and hope you'll give them a try, it's just different and awfully fun.

WILD, COOL AND SWINGIN'

MAMBO FEVER

CHRISTMAS COCKTAILS

CRIME SCENE

Readers, that brings us to the end of another In Training for a Heroine post. I don’t know when it will be possible to post again, but you can be sure I shall be back. Keep twiddling those dials: the next password will be ‘Mad-Eye.’ Keep each other safe. Keep faith. Good night!

Sibylle

Latest purchases

2009-07-03T12:36:00.014+02:00

It's this time of month again! I bought more than usual because of the summer holidays. Also, the CDs were on sale and I've just received my free iPod Nano (16gb, it's pink and I named it Tonks! It was free because I bought a MacBook called Hermione, which accounts for my lack of updates recently, getting used to using a Mac after 11 years of using Windows takes a while) so I really feel the need to own as many of my favourite CDs as possible to listen to them everywhere.

BOOKS

Angels in America - Tony Kushner
The miniseries is one of my favourites so this was just a matter of time.

Temeraire - Naomi Novik
"A reimagining of the epic events of the Napoleonic Wars with an air force—an air force of dragons, manned by crews of aviators." It sure sounds really cool! It's a series of books, there are 5 books so far (the sixth one is being written as we speak) so if I really like this one, at least there's more to keep me satisfied. Peter Jackson optioned it for a movie. I've decided that one of my goals for this year will be to finish the series I've started, so here's hoping.

Revolutionary Road, The Easter Parade, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness - Richard Yates
I loved Revolutionary Road so obviously I want to read more by Richard Yates. I bought them in this anthology edition published by Everyman Library because it was cheaper but if I ever want more Yates, I'll buy them in the Vintage edition, check out the covers, they're stunning.

The Spell - Alan Hollinghurst
The last book by Hollinghurst I haven't read! I'll miss him so much, he's definitely one of my favourite new authors this year (that is, new to me).

Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War - Virginia Nicholson
I've always been interested in women's history. I find the product description to be delightful: "Tracing their fates, Nicholson shows that these women did indeed harbor secret sadness, and many of them yearned for the comforts forever denied them--physical intimacy, the closeness of a loving relationship, and children. Some just endured, but others challenged the conventions, fought the system, and found fulfillment outside of marriage. From the mill-girl turned activist to the debutante turned archeologist, from the first woman stockbroker to the "business girls" and the Miss Jean Brodies, this book memorializes a generation of young women who were forced, by four of the bloodiest years in human history, to stop depending on men for their income, their identity, and their future happiness. Indeed, Singled Out pays homage to this remarkable generation of women who, changed by war, in turn would change society."

Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity and the Women Who Made America Modern - Joshua Zeitz
The 20's, women, sexuality redefined, jazz music in the background. Enough said!

The Brontës Went to Woolworths - Rachel Ferguson
This book has been out of print for ages, a used copy used to go for hundreds of pounds so saying that I'm happy I won't have to spend that much to read it is an understatement. This is part of a Bloomsbury release (nothing to do with the Bloomsbury group) "a new library of books from the early twentieth-century chosen by readers for readers," according to the website. I also want to buy a copy of Henrietta's War and Miss Hargreaves, which will be published soon. Brontës is "a charming novel from the early 1900s that revels in young innocence prior to the First World War and celebrates the fantasies of childhood". There's a more complete, but spoilery summary here.

Suite Scarlett - Maureen Johnson
I've been trying to read more YA this year, with mixed results. This one's another try: Maureen Johnson is part of this group of New-York-based YA writers (along with John Green whom I must read, Scott Westerfeld who wrote a book I really liked, Peeps, but I have to give his other books a second chance, Justine Larbalestier whom I'd really like to read too, her journal is excellent and some dreadful writers I won't name here). Scarlett lives in a hotel suite in New-York, which has been my secret wish for quite some time. Johnson's blog is really funny, and I hope it's an indication as to the quality of the book.

DVD

The Line of Beauty
I've seen it earlier this year and can't wait to see it again now that I've read the book. Beautiful miniseries, different from the book but I like them both equally. Buy them both please.

The Awful Truth/Born Yesterday/His Girl Friday
I've never seen Born Yesterday but the other two pictures are absolute marvels. I don't know if I'll ever understand each line of His Girl Friday completely one day, it's the fastest-talking movie I've ever seen, and one of the best. The Awful Truth is great physical comedy and the actors are impeccable.

Forbidden Hollywood Collection - Volume 2: The Divorcee/A Free Soul/Three on a Match/Female/Night Nurse
I've only seen two of them so I'm happy I still have 3 to discover. There's also a documentary called Thou Shalt Not: Sex and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood which sounds like the perfect introduction to this very interesting era and the perfect introduction to the series of books I want to read on the topic this year.

CD

The Beach Boys - no introduction needed! It's summer and I need my Boys.

Muse - One of the few contemporary rock bands I like unconditionally.

Elvis Presley - No introduction needed either, I hope. I'll buy the first compilation CD soon (30 #1 Hits)

Sibylle

I'll be glad when you're dead you rascal you

2009-06-25T15:42:00.017+02:00

>>>CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

I've been enjoying my holidays - perhaps not as much as I thought I would because I've been so busy catching up on things I should have done during the year but postponed till the summer holidays. I'm basically filling my days with books, music, movies and shows, as per usual. It seems I don't get good results if I don't keep to that routine. Take today, for example. I had an appointment to see my doctor at noon, then I was supposed to eat and go see an exhibition on jazz music. I ended up going to the exhibition without eating, so I was starving all the way through. What a waste of money, I'm so disappointed. The posters and magazine covers were beautiful but the short scenes from movies I had already seen (not their fault) or if they were new, there was too much noise to hear anything. For an exhibition on jazz music, there was surprisingly little music - I wasn't able to hear a full song since we weren't provided with headsets and there was way too much noise (a group of pupils blocked my way during the whole exhibit and they were really loud). I paid good money to see this exhibition and didn't stay more than an hour. Cameras weren't allowed and I didn't even buy any bookmark at the shop afterwards, which is pretty rare for me since I always find a bookmark to buy - the only one I wanted (with a picture of Josephine Baker) ended up being out of stock by the time I got there (Saturday's the last day to see this exhibition). There was a copy-book at the end for visitors to comment on the exhibition. The comments were pretty harsh, so I figured mine wasn't going to be the one that would have the poor man who organised all this commit suicide. I wrote "I'm afraid I learnt more about jazz listening to it on my iPod."
On my way there, at the metro station, I saw about a thousand posters for the movie adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Call me stupid but I was taken aback: oh my god, there's a movie. Then I caught myself: you already know there's a movie, wake up, you've known for years. I can't believe I'm still not used to the idea of a Harry Potter movie. It still doesn't make sense to me. It lasted but a second, though, yet it was very awkward. It's like having a part of your heart ripped off and put on display for all to see. I remember the days when Harry Potter was still my little bubble of happiness that not many people knew about, this little treasure we buried with great care and suspicious glances and dug up from time to time just to stare at and hold to our hearts. It's still very dear to me, it'll always be, but it's very different now. I feel so vulnerable when I talk about it. Anyway, the poster I saw is really beautiful, and I can't help but think Alan Rickman is Snape come to life. I went straight to the Internet to post it and I'm astonished to find that it's not on the Internet. The poster is blue (of course, like the rest of them) and has Snape on the foreground, Draco on his left, Bellatrix on his right and Filch holding a wand (!) in the background and says "The time has come" (redundant if you ask me, since it was the tagline for Prisoner of Azkaban as well. Come to think of it, Azkaban had the best taglines of them all - Everything will change was used again for Goblet of Fire, The Time has come is used again here, Something wicked this way comes is a winner, I also like Order of the Phoenix's The rebellion begins, at least it's active and it's what the book is about). Had I known it wasn't even on the Internet, I would have taken a picture for sure. In the meantime, I'll just post a fanart by the wonderfully talented Makani who's my favourite artist when it comes to all things Potter. You might recognize this scene as taking place in Spinner's End, the second chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

"Severus, will you swear it? Will you make the Unbreakable Vow?"

And the character I got my nickname from (just for a laugh):

I finally received my copy of the Myrna Loy and William Powell collection. As you might know, they're my favourites. I had already seen 3 of the 5 movies in this boxset - Love Crazy, I Love You Again and to a lesser extent Double Wedding are absolute gems, so I was very pleasantly surprised when I discovered yesterday that Manhattan Melodrama was a very good movie too. Not in the same league as Crazy and Again, but then it's hard to beat those two and they're completely different. I've already said here that I think Clark Gable can't act and I stand by that but the story was pretty good nonetheless, he didn't ruin it for me for once. A reviewer on Amazon says the movie isn't about Powell and Loy but about Powell and Gable, and I agree with that. They both play childhood friends, Powell plays an attorney called Jim and Gable a gangster called Blackie who has just killed somebody and is convicted for murder due to Jim's rhetoric, he then has to choose between being loyal to a friend or loyal to the law. Powell is excellent in that role - I love this actor so much. Even though Myrna is in a supporting role, she still manages to shine with the little she's given. I thought the direction was top-notch and wasn't surprised when I looked up who the director was: none other than Van Dyke, who directed Myrna and William in the Thin Man series. Keep your eyes open at the beginning of the movie: there's the sinking of a ship and Mickey Rooney as a young Blackie.
The movie comes with a few extras: "goofy movies" (which are completely nutty, I couldn't believe my eyes) and a cartoon called The Old Pioneer, which was strange in its representation of Native Americans to say the least and I don't know why they thought it was a good idea to include it. Next is Evelyn Prentice and then I'll watch the extras of the three comedies and perhaps rewatch the comedies themselves.

I'm going back to sipping my ice tea and watching The Wire. I'll soon make a post about just music while I take the time to read some books I don't have much to say about . I like Shakespeare a lot. I've just finished Much Ado About Nothing and loved it, it's so witty and Beatrice is a great character. I recommend it for a good laugh and food for thought on gender differences, especially regarding Hero's relationship with Claudio and how Shakespeare deals with that throughout the play.
Please take the time to listen to Cab Calloway's music. He's amazing.

She had a million dollars worth of nickels and dimes
And she sat around and counted ´em all a million times

LISTEN HERE

Have a very funny day!

Sibylle

Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, those days of soda and pretzels and cheer

2009-06-21T18:30:00.021+02:00

>>>CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

I hate summer but it has to come around eventually. Since this is both the first day of summer and the first day of my holidays, I think I'll be posting much more from now on. I have tons of things to say as usual. Perhaps I'll just start with what I've been watching. As you can see on the sidebar, I am currently very busy discovering new TV shows: I had to take a break from Buffy and Angel to focus on three things: rewatching the first two seasons of Mad Men before August (when the third season airs), discovering the critically acclaimed The Wire (at long last) and watching the first two seasons of Torchwood before the third season starts airing on July 4.

I've already seen Mad Men (in fact, I started watching it when nobody was watching it, way before it had won any award), but my first viewing was bitter-sweet: I had many concerns with what the writers were saying on issues such as misogyny and racism, still I was really attracted to its aesthetics (the clothes are to die for), the show is beautiful to look at, the characters are complex and the storylines interesting and incredibly current while still being evocative. Now that I'm watching it again, I think I understand a bit more what the show is about. Mad Men is Watchmen. Hear me out! What I mean is that Mad Men focuses on superheroes and shows their dark side. Shows the true nature of the 50s narrated by the 50s themselves, not by 2009 writers writing about the 50s. It focuses just as much on the men as it does on the women. It's about a microcosm, an advertising firm that represents a whole society. I really love that what the show has to say it so current. Advertising hasn't changed, it's still all about sex, nostalgia and youth. Nostalgia for youth. Youth because of sex. It all comes back to sex. It questions conventions and the American dream through very grey characters you can never completely root for. Mad Men is challenging, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they come up with next. I really should give The Sopranos another try sometime soon since Matthew Weiner created Mad Men and wrote for The Sopranos prior to that.

The Wire is the best show you didn't watch. Hell, I didn't watch it either when it aired. Too many other shows to focus on and I've never been interested in cop shows. I should have woken up, I should have known that HBO wouldn't air a cop show, anyway. Sure, some of the characters are policemen and women, but the writers take as much time depicting the drug dealers as they do the policemen. And The Wire is more than that, it's social commentary. It's realistic, so realistic the pace takes some getting use to: investigations take months, are not always successes and there is a lot, a lot of red tape and corruption of various institutions that prevent an investigation from moving on faster. The Wire rewards its patient audience with episodes that are more documentary than fiction, actors who look like they're doing what they do in real life, excellent dialogs and charismatic characters, all shades of grey. I am reaching the end of the second season and I'm completely addicted. PLEASE give this show a chance, the praise is well-deserved, it is one of the best shows out there hands down. Caveat of "potential audience beware", though. As is the case for Deadwood, please do not give up before having seen the first 13 episodes (the first season). I promise it's worth it, and I'm sure you'll fall in love with it way before. I for one was blown away by the pilot, but you may not be because it's different and challenging - it's what TV should always be. I'm so happy I've found it and sad that the ratings were so low when it aired, because it truly says something important about society, it's an excellent portrayal that denounces what should be denounced but never preaches while doing so. "Here, that's the way things are". No wonder it's Barack Obama's favourite show.

My love for Torchwood is more difficult to explain. I have never liked Doctor Who and yet I love Torchwood, sometimes labeled "Doctor Who for adults" even though I recognize its flaws. It's far from brilliant. The storylines are often silly (the aliens in particular are far from original, clichés are numerous: time travelling, aliens who want to be human, etc) and it's the kind of show you can probably skip and live just fine without because you wouldn't miss much. And yet, and yet, and yet... I am utterly and completely in love with the characters. All of them. I care deeply about the team because everything is written so you fall for them. They're the kind of people I want to be friends with and hug all the time. It's such a touching show when it's not meant to be. I also find its take on bisexuality extremely interesting. All of the characters are bisexual, or rather pansexual (gender doesn't matter to them) and nobody talks about it, it's a given. It's the kind of parameter I would also use for one of my stories if I ever were to write one. It's the only TV show I know that depicts sexuality this way and I find it refreshing and very well done: it doesn't mean that everybody has a sexual relationship with everybody else, just that they do whatever they fancy like doing without thinking about it twice. I think Torchwood is Russell T Davies's utopia,- it's mine too. This may participate to the feeling I get about the characters being so touching: since they're so free, they also express their feelings much more and I find characters like Gwen and Tosh to be all the more moving because we see their struggles and their loves and understand completely because it's not censored. I don't really know how to explain it, I guess you just have to watch the show and see if you can find the same connection. Torchwood also questions the meaning of life and of human life and mixes it up with the most trivial and yet cute humour. I love it, it's not perfect but it's my little bubble of fictional friends.

I've been reading so many books recently, and good ones too for most of them! I can't talk about them all in detail but I strongly recommend Kristin Cashore's Graceling. It's a fantasy book that's in the YA section of the bookshop. I think nothing can top The Hunger Games for this year's winner in YA for me but Graceling is a very engrossing book. It's beautifully written, the story is original and the heroine (Katsa is a wonderful girl) and hero are really well-written, I loved them instantly. It's got everything: it's a political story, a love story, a coming-of-age story, a story about rebellion, about survival, about conventions too, a little bit. I'm looking forward to the prequel Fire.
Noel Streatfeild is one of my favourite authors so each time I buy a new book by her, I expect it to be good. Circus Shoes wasn't good, it was very good. As far as her children books are concerned, Ballet Shoes remains my favourite, with White Boots a close second but Circus Shoes is a good strong third. Her writing is repetitive but she does it so well that I really don't mind. As usual, this one follows children who have to work as artists to win money for themselves, the attention to detail is gorgeous and the way she depicts children's emotions is second to none.
I also enjoyed The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, which was amusing, and March by Geraldine Brooks - I frankly loved what she did with the character, he's one of the best male characters to be found in fiction for sure.

But the real find for me was The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice. The cover makes it look like a book belonging to the chick-lit genre, which annoys me because it's anything but. It's certainly one of my favourite books. I would describe it as something between I Capture the Castle, The Pursuit of Love and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - if you know me at all, you know this is high praise indeed. The story takes place in the 50s in England when one day, Penelope, a teenager desperately in love with Johnnie Ray (the singer "who breaks hearts in mono", it's in the book) meets Charlotte, a confident girl her age who will open the doors of high society for her and soon becomes her best friend. Penelope will meet tons of eccentric people, all described in an impeccable, gorgeously evocative, inventive and funny prose. Dances, teas, concerts, buses being a novelty, finding a dress to wear to a ball, falling in and out of love are all part of this charming, beautiful story that I have no trouble seeing adapted if they keep the distinctive voice, setting and intelligent humour. In the background, Elvis Presley is not yet famous but thanks to American friends, Penelope (even though her heart belongs to Johnnie) hears his first record and admits he sounds "like nobody else", Penelope's brother is smitten with him and wants to become a singer, an important producer comes to England, some family secrets are revealed, and there's magic, lots of magic. I urge you to read the first few pages on Amazon: I started to type the first page here to whet your appetite and then realised I just couldn't stop and would have had to type the first 4 for you to get the whole experience!

Let's close this post with the divine Dinah Washington. I thought about posting some of her songs the minute I knew I was going to talk about Mad Men. The pilot is called Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and Dinah's rendition of this song is my favourite. Such a talented singer, I love her.

They said someday you'll find
All who love are blind
Oh, when your heart's on fire
You must realize
Smoke gets in your eyes

LISTEN HERE

Have a beautiful summer!

Sibylle

My Favourite Series, Miniseries & Movies for TV

2009-06-07T12:06:00.025+02:00

In alphabetical order:

TV SHOWS

American Dreams

Dead Like Me

Deadwood

Gilmore Girls

My So-Called Life

Once and Again

Queer as Folk

The West Wing

Wonderfalls

MINISERIES

Angels in America

Bleak House

Cambrige Spies

Cranford

Lilies

The Line of Beauty

North and South

MOVIES FOR TV

A Room With a View

Ballet Shoes

Miss Austen Regrets

Northanger Abbey

Persuasion

Sibylle

In moments of quiet, I'm strangely drawn toward you, but - well, there haven't been any quiet moments.

2009-06-06T13:49:00.026+02:00

>>> CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

This is my hundredth post, so let's make this one count! I have so much to talk about. Let's start with Deadwood, because an introduction is long overdue. I was recommended the series years ago: I watched the pilot about four times and a few more episodes but there always seemed to be more interesting things that got in the way so I never actually watched the show properly until this year. Well, let me tell you this: Deadwood is a thing of beauty. It's like a painting come to life. It's beautiful and gutsy and heartbreaking and funny and touching. The picspam I linked to actually talks about all the reasons Deadwood is awesome. But I just want to add something: watch the whole series before judging. Please. It's only 36 episodes and it's the only way to see the whole picture. Because the characters are so complex and the world so rich and original (this is greatly helped by the breathtaking cinematography, painstaking attention to detail and haunting score - god, the score, I swear, the piece Iguazu composed by Gustavo Santaolalla is magnificent) it might take you three whole seasons just to get used to this series, its words and its profound greatness. And watch out for the seasons finales - their beauty made me cry. Each episode will leave you exhausted, though, because there are just too many layers, but it's so worth it. Deadwood is about power, good and evil, chaos, basic instincts and ultimately about how we can work with and against all this and be full human beings. It's a study in sociology about what makes society (and it ain't pretty) with characters you can root for. I wish somebody would write something about the women of Deadwood - it's a man's world, but the women may just be the most complex and interesting characters of the show. This series makes a point. This series is smart. It's something you can go back to and write essays about. I miss it so much already.

♥

Bringing Up Baby (1938) is a very good movie indeed. I thought My Man Godfrey was nutty but Bringing Up Baby is off the charts. I couldn't stop laughing and had to rewind because I'd miss too much while I was busy rolling on the floor! The title of this post is a quote taken directly from the movie. It has everything: good physical comedy, great one-liners, Katharine Hepburn has a very original role that she masters beautifully, Cary Grant is funny and geeky and the supporting cast is top-notch, not at all caricatures. A movie in which a woman buys a leopard to catch the eye of a paleontologist is a winner in my book, anyway. After watching this, I was more critical of The Philadelphia Story, which I watched shortly after: the first part of the movie is excellent but the second part was too melodramatic and romantic for my taste - Kate plays a strong woman called Tracy in a classic divorce-remarriage plot, often used in screwball comedies but the lines are so great and fresh. I didn't like Jimmy Stewart much in this picture but Cary Grant is always welcome. He does comedy so well. The young actress who plays her sister Dinah, Virginia Wedleir, is suprisingly talented. Some lines to lure you in:

Liz Imbrie: Oh it's all right Tracy. We all go haywire at times and if we don't, maybe we ought to.

Macaulay Connor: I would sell my grandmother for a drink - and you know how I love my grandmother.

Dinah Lord: Nothing ever possibly in the least ever happens here. Mother, how do you get smallpox?

Margaret Lord: Oh, dear. Is there no such thing as privacy any more?
Tracy Lord: Only in bed, mother, and not always there.

I've already said this before but I'll repeat it: what I like most about "classic" comedies is that they're all about theatre, really. It's all about dialog and the way this dialog is delivered. Add to that a challenging pace and excellent acting and you've got a winner.

Alice Swallow: Oh David, what have you done?
David Huxley: Just name anything, and I've done it.

Susan Vance: You've just had a bad day, that's all.
David Huxley: That's a masterpiece of understatement.

Moving on to books! Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson was nothing like what I expected it to be. I didn't expect it to be so funny, full of supernatural elements and the writing so smart and playful, it was all the more moving as it never thinks of being sentimental. It's realistic in terms of feelings and characterization but the writing is very special. I'm no good with summaries, so I asked Wikipedia to the rescue:
"The main character is a young girl named Jeanette, who is adopted by evangelists. She believes she is destined to become a missionary. The book depicts religious enthusiasm as an exploration of the power of love. As an adolescent, Jeanette experiences lesbian tendencies and her mother's group of religious friends subject her and her girlfriend to exorcisms." I loved Jeanette, the heroine. She's sensible, honest and hilarious. Will definitely read more of Winterson's books.

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff was a lovely read. It's a true epistolary exchange between an American reader and a British bookseller living in England that starts in the middle of the Second World War. Helene regularly sends letters to order books she can't buy in the US and little by little, a friendship develops and Helene starts to send the bookshop parcels of food and other delicacies the staff can't buy because of rationing. What I liked most was Helene's passion for books. She's very honest and passionate about her loves. Even though her tastes in books are not the same as mine, I found a kindred spirit and a same obsession for reading. The correspondence was really touching and funny - Helene is such a great woman who doesn't love by halves, I like this kind of people. It's strange reading this today: I can easily have access to books published abroad and I take advantage of that immensely as you know. Still, I would have loved to have my personal bookseller sending me parcels of goodies every month, someone with whom I could discuss the books I purchase and who would be on the lookout for books I might be interested in. Reading is such a lonely activity, I feel the need to talk to other readers sometimes.

And last, but certainly not least, I finally bought and read Harry, a History by Melissa Anelli (webmistress of The Leaky Cauldron, one of the most popular fansites along with Mugglenet - I've always prefered Leaky myself), which is really a history of the fandom and how it developed. I can't express how much I loved this book. I read it in two sittings only because I started it late in the afternoon. It felt as if I were reading the story of my life so far, only with extras - Melissa attended every convention, tons of Wizard rock concerts, hosts the most listened to podcast on Potter and most of all, interviewed J.K. Rowling the day after the release of Half-Blood Prince in the most interesting interview for a fan because she asked specific questions about the plot. The second interview was for this book, Jo reminisces on how it all happened. This book is a story of what I wish my life could have been, and in a way, already was.
I cannot think of anyone who would have made a more worthy reporter of what happened for so many years. Melissa is the most excellent spokesperson and I was proud of her for standing by so many of the reasons why Harry Potter means so much to me.
It is such a privilege to be able to understand all the references, and Melissa explains them so well - the shipping wars, Laura Mallory, the fanfictions, Sugar Quill vs Fanfiction.net, the Wizard rock, the conventions. My favourite parts had to do with the release of Deathly Hallows - Melissa remembers the day it was published - because it affected all of the fandom in this eerie way - when you know something will never be the same and yet sense this accomplishment, this ultimate reward. I remember this specific passage when Jo talks about looking at her own reflection in the Mirror of Erised created for the movie when she visited the set: she saw herself surrounded with her books, Britain's most successful author. In the mirror she saw not a better version of her life but her life. Reading Harry, a History, it felt like looking in the Mirror and see a different version of myself, so close because we'd all experienced the same things, but so far because Melissa had experienced them to the full and made each one count.
I already knew Harry Potter was a part of me and would be forever - the books influenced my life from the way I vote to the way I laugh. What I didn't know is that there could be ways to be influenced by these books even more, and Melissa proved that. I felt humbled by and jealous of what she got to see, to hear, to read, to meet. I think, though, that she more than proved she was worthy of the dream life of any Potter fan - ultimately, I was simply happy someone in the world who could appreciate it entirely got to have this life. "I graduated in Potter studies" should be on her biography.
I'm so proud of this fandom and proud to be a part of it.
I hear Melissa's already writing a second book, but she didn't say what it was about. To me, it means it's not over. I said that this book was the story of my life so far, only with extras. I'm happy, grateful and relieved to know that there are still some changes to record and stories to tell.

In Philosopher's Stone, Dumbledore tells Harry: Ah, music. A magic beyond all we do here! While I'm still waiting for my letter from Hogwarts, I agree that music is magical. A 3-minute song can set your mood for a whole day. Today I feel like posting some Sam Cooke. The man invented soul music all by himself. I love soul when it's sung by Sam Cooke.

Let me tell you 'bout a place
Somewhere up-a New York way
Where the people are so gay
Twistin' the night away-ay
Here they have a lot of fun
Puttin' trouble on the run
Man, you find the old and young
Twistin' the night away
They're twistin', twistin', everybody's feelin' great
They're twistin', twistin', they're twistin' the night away

LISTEN HERE

I wish you a very happy month of June!
The wonderfully versatile and talented Joan Blondell

Sibylle

No Regrets

2009-05-28T01:01:00.011+02:00

I've just finished watching the entire series. I don't know what to say - the words I know can seem so mundane, sometimes - I'd need more vocabulary to describe it. Life-changing doesn't even begin to cover it. I love these people. I am grateful I saw it, I am grateful for what it brought me and for the way it pierced my heart. For the way it will always be a part of me. Grateful I got a glimpse of their lives without seeing them die. To me, they're immortal. This is one of those times in life when something is exactly the way it should be and I feel almost sad knowing nothing will probably be as perfect ever again. One of those times when something, someone, makes you feel alive.

♥

Books, books, books

2009-05-23T11:57:00.009+02:00

Some of my newest purchases have already reached me:

The first thing I did when I received my copy of Stella Gibbons' Nightingale Wood was check who the illustrator for the cover was. It's Sarah Gibb, and you can find her beautiful website here.

Which means my To Be Read Pile looks like this:

From top to bottom:
1. March - Geraldine Brooks
2. The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets - Eva Rice
3. Assassin's Apprentice - Robin Hobb
4. February House - Sheryl Tippins
5. Debs at War - Anne de Courcy
6. 84, Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff
7. Love's Labour's Lost - William Shakespeare
8. Nightingale Wood - Stella Gibbons
9. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon

There are some more books on their way, including As You Like It, with this beautiful cover:

And I finally gave in and ordered Melissa Anelli's book- Harry, a History. I've been the hugest Potter fan for eleven years now and I felt that reading this book would mean that it is really over, which is why I had never ordered it before. But I'm slowly coming to terms with being a 24/7 Potter fan no matter what I have to face (including realisation of the end) so there you go. Huge step for me. I feel like rereading the whole series first, which I'll probably do this summer.

Sibylle

All You Need to Start an Asylum is an Empty Room and the Right Kind of People

2009-05-21T10:21:00.008+02:00

>>>CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

I'm having a really good time these days. Let's start with cinema. Some absolute gems are to be found in the most classic of screwball comedies, and I'll tell you why.

My Man Godfrey (1936) stars the wonderful William Powell who requested to be teamed with Carole Lombard. The line I used for the title of this post sums it up quite accurately, actually. Everybody in this movie is utterly nutty. Powell plays Godfrey, a buttler hired by a rich family who would fill a whole asylum all by itself. I don't even know where to start. Every line, every shot is ridiculously hilarious and the contrast between Godfrey's sanity and the family's antics is priceless. Surprisingly enough, it is also quite a good commentary on the Great Depression: Godfrey is picked up on the street and is more sane than the rich family he meets. It seems that My Man Godfrey is simply a collage of the best screwball scenes ever. I absolutely loved it.

I talked about how much I adored The Awful Truth (1937) starring Cary Grant and the wonderfully versatile Irene Dunne. Recently, I've been wanting to check out more of Cary Grant's comedies and I started with His Girl Friday (1940), starring Grant and Rosalind Russell, who's absolutely perfect for the part. Now that's the textbook definiton of snappy dialog. I have never in my life heard people talk this fast. Now I know where Amy Sherman-Palladino, who created my favourite show Gilmore Girls, got her idea! If you think Lauren Graham speaks fast, fasten your seatbelts for His Girl Friday! In a way, it's the perfect counterpart to The Awful Truth, which uses a lot of physical comedy. His Girl Friday is the essence of verbal comedy. The plot is pretty simple, but the dialog and the great scenes make it all worth it: Grant plays Walter Burns who tries to win back his ex-wife, Hildy (played by Russell). They are both journalists. I think this movie is marvellous for numerous reasons: the fact that no matter how many times you see it, you still pick up some jokes you probably didn't understand before, the fact that it has a welcome dose of feminism (Hildy is the best journalist the paper has and is perfectly at her ease working with men). There's something incredibly entertaining in watching verbal wars and witty comebacks mastered by excellent actors. It's so close to theatre, in a way. Truth spoken out loud can be just plain rude and His Girl Friday is full of that, it's a delight from beginning to end. Watching My Man Godfrey and His Girl Friday - I'm sure that's what heaven looks like. Some lines to lure you in:

Walter Burns: Sorta wish you hadn't done that, Hildy.
Hildy Johnson: Done what?
Walter Burns: Divorced me. Makes a fella lose all faith in himself. Gives him a... almost gives him a feeling he wasn't wanted.
Hildy Johnson: Oh, now look, junior... that's what divorces are FOR!

And some more:

Hildy Johnson: I wouldn't cover the burning of Rome for you if they were just lighting it up!

I want to say a few words about The Monk, written by Matthew Lewis and published in 1796. It's such a transgressive book. Ambrosio, a monk, is seduced by a beautiful woman named Matilda who plots his downfall. Little by little, Ambrosio is more and more attracted to Antonia, a beautiful virgin he meets. It's a horror novel: Ambrosio rapes Antonia on the ashes of a convent, then kills her because he feels too guilty. He is then caught by the Inquisition, sells his soul to the devil (through Matilda) to be saved but the devil has more suffering planned for him: he tells Ambrosio Antonia was his sister and Matilda was sent by the devil to lure Ambrosio into a world of decadence.
Does it get any more subversive than that? It's a fascinating book on many levels, so rich and interesting. I don't think anyone could be bored reading this. Ambrosio's torments and dilemna fill the most part of the book and some passages are really racy. It's a book of sexual and religious inversion, really. Funny how religion and sex are very much linked in this novel. But I think it goes further than a plain opposition between virtue and sin. It makes some interesting points about women (after the rape, Antonia's thoughts are never described, she's an object and the point of view focuses on Ambrosio, that shocked me, which I guess was the point), about conventions and obsession. Thumping good read that reminded me of Sade, in a way (have only read excerpts). Lewis was only 19 when he wrote the novel.

If I live, your truth, your reputation, your reward of a life past in sufferings, all that you value, is irretrievably lost. I shall no longer be able to combat my passions, shall seize every opportunity to excite your desires, and labour to effect your dishonour and my own. No, no, Ambrosio, I must not live; I am convinced with every moment that I have but one alternative; I feel with every heart-throb, that I must enjoy you or die.

Sidney Bechet is the best. I'm in love with quite a few American composers, but I think Bechet ultimately wins my heart. He does things absolutely nobody I've heard does. He's so playful. Listening to his music, you really get a feel of what New Orleans must have been like. His delivery is so energetic, each of his songs makes me want to dance and dance some more. Reminds me of these lyrics to a song by Martha & the Vandellas:

Are you ready for a brand new beat?
Summer's here and the time is right
For dancin' in the streets
They're dancin' in Chicago
Down in New Orleans
Up in New York City

All we need is music, sweet music
There'll be music everywhere
There'll be swingin', swayin' and records playin'
And dancin' in the streets

Have fun listening to Bechet's music, 'cause summer's here and the time is right!

LISTEN HERE

Sibylle

Latest Purchases!

2009-05-18T13:00:00.028+02:00

Today's post is brought to you by Oscar Wilde:

The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.
HEAR, HEAR!

BOOKS

Nightingale Wood - Stella Gibbons

Isn't the cover simply gorgeous? Cold Comfort Farm is a very underrated book written by a comic genius and I cannot wait to receive Nightingale Wood as it has just been reprinted by the lovely Virago Press. Along with Cold Comfort Farm, it's the only book by Gibbons still in print. I don't understand how such a great author can remain out-of-print. Have a look at the summary:
Life is not quite a fairytale for poor Viola. Left penniless, the young widow is forced to live with her late husband's family in a joyless old house. There's Mr Wither, a tyrannical old miser, Mrs Wither, who thinks Viola is just a common shop girl, and two unlovely sisters-in-law, one of whom is in love with the chauffeur. Only the prospect of the charity ball can raise Viola's spirits - especially as Victor Spring, the local prince charming, will be there. But Victor's intentions towards our Cinderella are, in short, not quite honourable ...

84 Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff

A shame I still haven't read this book. I can't wait to put my hands on it. Epistolary exchange between a book-lover and a bookseller.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon

I'm slowly becoming more and more interested in comic books. I think the movie adaptation of Watchmen may have had more of an impact on me than I realised at the time (still waiting for some money to buy the comic book). The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is not a comic book. It's a novel that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001. But it's very inspired by comic books. I have great expectations so I hope it won't disappoint. I think this part of an Amazon review is quite beautiful. In any case, it's the part that made me want to purchase it immediately:
Suffice to say, Michael Chabon writes novels like the Escapist busts locks. Previous books such as The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys have prose of equal shimmer and wit, and yet here he seems to have finally found a canvas big enough for his gifts. The whole enterprise seems animated by love: for his alternately deluded, damaged and painfully sincere characters; for the quirks and curious innocence of tough-talking wartime New York; and, above all, for comics themselves, "the inspirations and lucubrations of five hundred ageing boys dreaming as hard as they could". Far from negating such pleasures, the Holocaust's presence in the novel only makes them more pressing. Art, if not capable of actually fighting evil, can at least offer a gesture of defiance and hope--a way out of a world gone completely mad.

Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies & Put Out More Flags - Evelyn Waugh
I didn't understand Brideshead Revisited. Looking back, it resembles Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty but while I can understand Nick's attraction to a world of privilege and leisure (which is only one of the reasons why this book is so important to me, frankly it's a masterpiece and I don't know what else to say to make you read it!), I couldn't understand Charles' attraction to Catholicism or religion in general. At all. Which made the book boring and pointless. I'm willing to give Waugh another chance and because I'm a great believer in the power of laughter, I think I may appreciate these satires more than what he tried to do in Brideshead.

Much Ado About Nothing & Love's Labour's Lost - William Shakespeare

I adore Shakespeare. No matter what he wrote, you can be sure it's still relevant today. I enjoy his comedies and tragedies very much but I'll also get to his histories eventually (I liked Richard III). I try to buy and read at least three plays per year. I only buy them in the Arden edition to have a neat collection that's as complete as they come, and since the third edition is currently being published, I've decided I only want to buy my plays in this third edition. I'll have to wait for some since some are only available in the second edition, which I find a bit dated in terms of literary commentary. So here are Much Ado About Nothing (I saw the movie adaptation starring the wonderful Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh) and Love's Labour's Lost. I'm waiting for As You Like It to be in stock again to buy it.

Oscar Wilde and P.G. Wodehouse will be next.

MOVIES

Can I get a high-five? This was only a matter of time. I'm so happy I finally gave in! I'll talk to you soon about another movie starring William Powell (sadly, without Myrna) that I saw recently. It made me realise just how fabulous this actor is. I adore these two to pieces and talked about their movies extensively on this journal.

The Forbidden Hollywood boxsets will be next.

MUSIC

The Andrews Sisters may just be my favourite band! No complete collection has been released but by comparing the different tracks present in the different compilations, I managed to make a list of 4 records to buy with no overlapping. The first two I already own: The Golden Age of the Andrews Sisters (in fact, a boxset of 4 CDs) and Now is the Time, both released by the ever-so-lovely label Jasmine. The other two are Melody Time with the Andrews Sisters and Music Lessons with the Andrews Sisters which I plan on buying shortly. I hesitated a long while before clicking to buy this record because I have so many CDs to buy. But I like to buy methodically so I'll just complete my collection of Andrews Sisters tunes before starting another collection.

Billie Holiday is next.

I turned 21 a few days ago, so I don't feel too guilty about these purchases. I think nobody can feel guilty for long while listening to the Beach Boys, anyway. "The Beach Boys attitude" to me means lots of ice cream and vanilla milkshakes, funny sunglasses and a good read. Enjoy these Sounds of Summer!

LISTEN HERE

Sibylle

Beware of Swoons, Dear Laura: Run Mad as Often as You Chuse; But Do Not Faint

2009-05-07T16:31:00.020+02:00

>>>CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

This journal is about fun. It's about things that make me happy. Hard to blog when next to nothing makes you happy. I'm catching up on life, though, and trying to find happiness in the little things. It all comes down to the little things. And then small becomes big, and because I'm so passionate about my loves, it doesn't take much to put a smile on my face. A funny and engrossing book, a touching show, essential music. So here they are.

Before I forget, Claire has given In Training for a Heroine two awards. Thank you so much, Claire!

"The blogger who receives this award believes in the Tao of the zombie chicken - excellence, grace and persistence in all situations, even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. These amazing bloggers regularly produce content so remarkable that their readers would brave a raving pack of zombie chickens just to be able to read their inspiring words. As a recipient of this world-renowned award, you now have the task of passing it on to at least 5 other worthy bloggers. Do not risk the wrath of the zombie chickens by choosing unwisely or not choosing at all…”

I think I'm going to risk their wrath because I can't think of 5 blogs to give it to. Very original award, though!

The Mysteries of Udolpho was surprisingly engrossing. Having spent nine months analysing every single instance of humour in Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (for my masters dissertation), I thought the book was only a big cliché, something silly you read on the bus. Radcliffe wrote a powerful book which, in many ways, denounces the very genre to which it belongs. Emily St. Aubert, the heroine of the book, faints and has adventures in a castle. There's a villain, there's a proper suitor and a happy ending. Yet, even in the wildest moments, some sentences are food for thought:

She blamed herself for suffering her romantic imagination to carry her so far beyond the bounds of probability, and determined to endeavour to check its rapid flights, lest they should sometimes extend into madness.

Sounds awfully like something Austen would have written. The abundant depictions one can find in Udolpho are overly sentimental and picturesque, and the ending is a joke, very didactic and anticlimatic. Still, I found the book to be much more serious (Radcliffe's description of certain characters' personality is intriguing) and exciting than I thought it would be. I couldn't wait to know what sort of adventure would come next. I think I will read The Monk by Matthew Lewis very soon, it was published in 1796, two years after Udolpho and 32 years after the publication of the first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole.

I've been watching several TV shows that are new to me. I have already talked about it here, but I've discovered Buffy, the Vampire Slayer this year. I've watched the first four seasons - the first one I struggled to finish but the next three are very impressive. I'm surprised to find the show has such a scope. It really deals with tons of things at the same time and the main character is a true heroine, I adore her. I've also been watching the spin-off, Angel. I didn't expect it to be so good, mainly because I thought it was going to be redundant. I couldn't have been further from the truth! The show is very different from Buffy - it's way darker and tackles even more issues. Again, the characters are extremely well-written- Angel, whose journey to redemption is quite fascinating to watch, and Cordelia who has evolved so much since Buffy. I'm very happy to be finally watching these shows after having avoided them all those years. I can now understand why Joss Whedon is so admired for his work. It's truly original.
I don't want to talk about Deadwood just yet, for some reason - I think it deserves its own post. The first season is magnificent. It goes places I never thought a TV show would explore and it's got you rooting for characters who are completely mad and live in what can be called an asylum. Great dialogs, too, some of the best.
I'm also addicted to Queer as Folk. I've only watched 8 episodes so far but I need my daily episode (at least) or my day isn't complete. What a fantastic show! Can't believe I'm such a latecomer to everything! The characters are so endearing, funny, touching. I want to step in and live with them. You all probably know the premise: the show focuses on a group of gay friends living in the 21st century (how heterocentric - has anyone ever described Friends as a show depicting the life of a group of heterosexual friends?). At first, I thought the direction was amateur, it felt like a soap. Once again, I was completely wrong. I read it was "basically porn" and have to differ: it's honest and has some of the best explicit sex scenes on TV but it's not porn in that you don't actually see anything. It's just very erotic. People seriously overestimate the network if they think Showtime would actually broadcast gay porn in primetime. Some of the best characters ever created, and it hurts to know they must have real-life counterparts, it hurts because I want to know these people - the characters are so real. One of them is an incredible role model - Debbie is the president of her local PFLAG chapter (her son Michael is gay), I have never seen such a wonderful character portrayed on TV. All she wants is everybody's happiness, she's incredibly welcoming and loving. I adore her with all my heart and you should watch the show for her alone. And for Brian Kinney, one of the sexiest characters ever, and Brian/Justin, who break my heart everyday. And Brian/Michael who are just painful to watch together. And for the direction. And for the sex. And for the love. And for the music. And for the smiles (did I mention how funny this show is?). And for the tears. I ♥ Queer as Folk.

Some music to finish! Music is life. How about some swing with Louis Jordan? If his playful (and saucy, see the following lyrics!) music doesn't make you want to dance and smile, I don't know what will. Have a glorious and fun week!

LISTEN HERE

Every honey bee fills with jealousy
When they see you out with me
I don't blame them
Goodness knows
Honeysuckle rose

When you're passin' by,
Flowers droop and sigh
I know the reason why
You're much sweeter
Goodness knows
Honeysuckle rose

Well, don't buy sugar
You just have to touch my cup
You're my sugar
And it's oh so sweet when you stir it up

When I'm takin' sips
From your tasty lips
Seems the honey fairly drips
You're confection
Goodness knows
Honeysuckle rose

Well, don't buy sugar
You just have to touch my cup
You're my sugar
And it's oh so sweet when you stir it up

When I'm takin' sips
From your tasty lips
Seems the honey fairly drips
You're confection
Goodness knows
Honeysuckle rose

Works that Changed my Life - Three

2009-04-28T13:17:00.008+02:00

Works that Changed my Life

I Capture the Castle

Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle

Cassandra: I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog's blanket and the tea-cosy.

Cassandra: When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it.

Cassandra: Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.

Cassandra: He stood staring into the wood for a minute, then said: "What is it about the English countryside — why is the beauty so much more than visual? Why does it touch one so?" He sounded faintly sad. Perhaps he finds beauty saddening — I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty's evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die. Then he said I was probably too young to understand him; but I understood perfectly.

Tim Fywell - I Capture the Castle

Cassandra: I am never going to fall in love. Life is dangerous enough.

Cassandra: There's only the last page left to write on. I'll fill it with words of just one syllable. I love. I have loved. I will love.

Current Playlist

2009-04-25T09:17:00.026+02:00

I think (hope) it's clear to everybody reading this blog that I enjoy music very very much. My tastes are all over the place and I'm always willing to make new discoveries. These are some of the artists I've been listening to a lot recently. Some swing, some rock and roll, some jazz, some blues, some rock and some pop. I'm really passionate about them all and I don't think you can go wrong with any one of them. I'm also constantly listening to an online radio called Rock-It. I urge you to give it a try. It plays "1950's and Early 1960's Rock and Roll, Doo Wop, Rockabilly and Rhythm and Blues". I love it, their playlists are very good and the hosts quite funny.

OLDIES

For each of these artists, I chose one random compilation of their music because I love everything they've done. The compilation is here for your listening pleasure and for easy access but please bear in mind that I am not limiting their music to these few titles.

Louis Prima

LISTEN HERE

Chuck Berry

LISTEN HERE

The Contours

LISTEN HERE

Little Richard

LISTEN HERE

Glenn Miller

LISTEN HERE

Duke Ellington

LISTEN HERE

Count Basie

LISTEN HERE

Dean Martin
LISTEN HERE

Muddy Waters

LISTEN HERE

The Rolling Stones

LISTEN HERE

CONTEMPORARY

It's so hard for me to find contemporary music that I absolutely love! I'm quite choosy when it comes to it - I won't always like entire discographies (it happens but seldom) and I won't always like "similar artists" whom I don't think are similar at all. Still, I do find some extraordinary artists from time to time and here are the ones I've been listening to the most recently:

Muse - Complete Discography

LISTEN HERE

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
LISTEN HERE

The Raveonettes - Pretty in Black

LISTEN HERE

Lily Allen - Complete Discography
I have already posted Alright, Still - her first album - here but I love her new album It's Not Me It's You as well. It's fresh and the lyrics are so current.

LISTEN HERE

That's all, folks, have a splendid day!

Something old (okay, none of the music I've been listening to recently is as old as that!) and something new.

Oh Rhett, is That You?

2009-04-18T09:08:00.013+02:00

1930s

You do all the household chores - and still look fresher every day, darling. What's your secret? A bowl of Kellogg's PEP vitamin cereal for breakfast, naturally.

1953

You don't need a knife, a bottle opener or even your husband to unscrew the cap of this bottle - just a little twist of the Alcoa HyTop Closure, made of pure aluminium, and that ketchup is ready to pour.

1961

When you can't wait for your dinner, give her a Kenwood Chef food mixer and let her have some fun preparing your favourite dish!

2009's take on the 50s:

Works that Changed my Life - Two

2009-04-17T16:04:00.006+02:00

Works that Changed my Life

A Room With a View

E.M. Forster - A Room With a View

George Emerson: "He [Cecyl Vise] is the sort who are all right so long as they keep to things--books, pictures--but kill when they come to people. He daren't let a woman decide. He's the type who's kept Europe back for a thousand years. Every moment of his life he's forming you, telling you what's charming or amusing or ladylike, telling you what a man thinks womanly; and you, you of all women, listen to his voice instead of to your own. But I do love you surely in a better way than he does." He thought. "Yes--really in a better way. I want you to have your own thoughts even when I hold you in my arms. As you came through the wood I saw that nothing else mattered. I called. I wanted to live and have my chance of joy."

Youth enwrapped them; the song of Phaethon announced passion requited, love attained. But they were conscious of a love more mysterious than this. The song died away; they heard the river, bearing down the snows of winter into the Mediterranean.

ITV - A Room With a View

George Emerson: The poor man.
Lucy Honeychurch: Yes.
George Emerson: Half an hour ago he was so full of life, and now he's dead. It's such a tremendous thing. That he's dead and we're... alive.

2009-04-14T21:51:00.002+02:00

I think the best day's gotta be the next day. Life is... all what's next. It's like those billboards where, before the actual ad goes up, they put in big block letters "Watch this space".
The West Wing 4x13 The Long Goodbye

Works that Changed my Life - One

2009-04-12T13:34:00.011+02:00

Works that Changed my Life

The Hours

Michael Cunningham - The Hours

We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep - it's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out of windows or drown themselves or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us, the vast majority, are devoured by some disease or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there where our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning, we hope, more than anything, for more.

Stephen Daldry - The Hours

Virginia Woolf: A woman's whole life in a single day. Just one day. And in that day her whole life.

Clarissa Vaughn: You don't have to go to the party, you don't have to go to the ceremony, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. You can do as you like.
Richard Brown: But I still have to face the hours, don't I? I mean, the hours after the party, and the hours after that...

Virginia Woolf: You cannot find peace by avoiding life, Leonard.

Laura Brown: It would be wonderful to say you regretted it. It would be easy. But what does it mean? What does it mean to regret when you have no choice? It's what you can bear. There it is. No one's going to forgive me. It was death. I chose life.

Virginia Woolf: Dear Leonard. To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours.

Philip Glass - The Hours

LISTEN HERE

Separate rooms, I'll arrange that by tomorrow, but today I can't fix it, unless you kill a guest

2009-04-12T10:36:00.013+02:00

>>>BUY THE FLOWERS YOURSELF, CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

I've been watching so many different things I don't know where to begin. I have started the third season of Buffy, the fourth of The West Wing (this one's a rewatch of course) I am still watching all the Marx Brothers movies I can put my hands on (Duck Soup is their masterpiece, although I have a particular fondness for Monkey Business), I have decided to watch four John Hughes movies also - The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Sixteen Candles - these are classics I have never seen - better late than never. I have also decided to start watching Deadwood.
Deadwood. Ah, Deadwood, Deadwood, Deadwood. Long story short: this is not my first time trying. I can't remember how many times I've watched the first four episodes of the first season before something else got in the way. It's such a different show. Takes some getting used to, and for some reason, I've never had the patience it takes to stick and not give up. I can feel this time's the right one, though. I'll report back if I find a gem in all of this. That's completely unrelated but I found this post by Katie to be utterly amusing.

Charles de Lint's The Blue Girl was entertaining. The narrative is told from three different points of view - Imogene's (a punk girl who used to belong to a gang), a ghost's (who's in love with Imogene, she can see him too) and Maxine's (whose mother is too controlling, she's a nice girl). They have to fight some dark fairies while attending high school and being bullied. I finished it but still, it was only entertaining - it was an easy read but in the end didn't have much of a purpose besides a few adventures. I may be spoiled, but after reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, I have different expectations when it comes to YA fiction. It can be both exciting and thought-provoking. The Blue Girl does not add anything to what already exists is my point.

Read Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty knowing that it is his masterpiece, that it doesn't get any better than that. After having read two of his other books (the only one left is The Spell), I can say for sure that he is one of my favourite authors - he makes me look at myself in a different way. The Folding Star is no exception. It's about obsession and how it relates to art, as usual. It's a very intelligent novel - Hollinghurst's themes are present in each of his book and I read these three books - The Line of Beauty, The Folding Star, The Swimming-Pool Library - as three books of a same series. The prose is perfect, sacred and profane - I think the real excellency of Hollinghurst lies in the fact that he manages to intellectualize that which cannot be intellectualized - lust. It is elitist and yet it strongly invites everyone in by the universality of what it describes. It's funny when you don't expect it to be. I'm so happy I discovered this author this year, he's a true find. He's not for everybody, though - some will find the writing extremely cold because the characters are the opposite of perfect, because it depicts idleness before focusing on the rest. I myself think he's very special because he's not afraid of looking at desires for what they are.

The amount of the things I want to buy is simply insane - that's the downside of finding so many great albums, movies, TV shows and authors. I will probably purchase some of those next week. My to-be-read pile only only contains seven books, for example, so it's time for a fresh one.
In other news, spring's here and I think there's no better season for Bobby Darin. 60s pop is the best.

LISTEN HERE

Every night I hope and pray
A dream lover will come my way
A girl to hold in my arms
And know the magic of her charms
'Cause I want
A girl
To call
My own
I want a dream lover
So I don't have to dream alone

I do not care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members

2009-04-05T10:05:00.022+02:00

>>>IF A BULLET SHOULD ENTER MY BRAIN, LET THAT BULLET DESTROY EVERY CLOSET DOOR<<<

Terry Pratchett is wonderful. There. I said it. I love his books so very much! If you remember correctly, I read Mort earlier this year, this was the first book in Death's storyline. I finally got around to reading the second installment, Reaper Man and enjoyed it just as much. Here's the (very good, I think) summary:

Death has to happen. Tha'ts what bein' alive is all about. You're alive, and then you're dead. It can't just stop happening.' But it can. And it has. So what happens after death is now less of a philosophical question than a question of actual reality. On the disc, as here, they need Death. If Death doesn't come for you, then what are you supposed to do in the meantime? You can't have the undead wandering about like lost souls. There's no telling what might happen, particularly when they discover that life really is only for the living...

Pratchett is deliciously funny, in that a good and brilliant friend is deliciously funny. There's such a tenderness in the insanity, it's wonderful. I even learnt a thing or two On page 82, in a footnote to a passage describing a character in a restaurant and who is called "shameless autocondimentor" there is the following information:

"An autocondimentor is someone who will put salt and probably pepper on any meal you put in front of them whatever it is and regardless of how much it's got on it already and regardless of how it tastes. Behavioural psychiatrists working for fast-food outlets around the universe have saved billions of whatever the local currency is by noting the autocondimenting phenomenon and advising their employers to leave seasoning out in the first place. This is really true."

The term was actually coinced by Terry Pratchett himself. But it makes so much sense! I find that genius, personally: his stories are always so original, interesting and colourful, and hilarious (don't make the mistake I made - don't read them in a public place, I couldn't contain my laughter!) and there's always something incredibly true in every single one of them - like this piece of information, that I found most informative. Of course, Pratchett's stories always make you think: I've found Death's story arc very profound so far - there are tons of food for thought about death and life and what happiness is made of. Just the kind of comfort read I'm looking for - deeply rewarding, it makes you smile not only because it's tender and warm, but also because it has you see the world in a different way. Terry Pratchett is wonderful, and I'm grateful to have discovered him this year - one of my favourite authors for sure.

Terry Pratchett - for real! Portrait by Paul Kidby

I've also read The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. I thought it was much better than Washington Square - it was so good! I'd recommend it as a first approach to James, I'm very impressed with him now that I've read Lady. James creates such "round" characters (I'm borrowing E.M. Forster's classification here), it's really fascinating to see how their story enfolds. I thought the character of Isabel Archer, the heroine, was a very good portrait indeed. She's 23 at the beginning of the novel and doesn't want to marry because there are "other things a woman can do". It's a modernist novel as far as the writing style is concerned. Some lines were so stupendously true to life, one of those books that allows you to say, astonished "yes, that's exactly how it is". Isabel meets lots of different people and changes her mind quite a few times, so much so that the end is very ambiguous (I think it worked best this way, I can see that either alternative was betraying something). It's hard not to talk about it without giving away anything because the plot is, as seems the rule with James, not very action-packed. I really enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to reading The Bostonians.

"Don't mind anything any one tells you about any one else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself." - Ralph

Casting news for the upcoming BBC adaptation of Emma: Romola Garai will play the heroine (would have preferred my darling Carey Mulligan but I like Romola - watch I Capture the Castle (read the book first, one of my favourites), Atonement, Daniel Deronda - I'm still not sure about her acting after watching her in so many movies, I can't decide if it's forced or if it's just the characters. I like her anyway but somebody new and fresh would have been good, Romola's well-known. Michael Gambon will play Mr Woodhouse, Emma's father (yay!) and the big disappointment comes from the casting of Knightley - Jonny Lee Miller (who played Edmund in the 1999 "adaptation" of Mansfield Park, it's a small world). He doesn't look the part at all. Looking forward to hearing news about Harriet, Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill (not Rupert Friend, please).

I saw quite a few movies since the last time I posted! First of all, Mannequin (1937) directed by one of my favourite directors, Frank Borzage. This movie is right up his alley: it stars Joan Crawford as Jessie in what may be her best performance. She's married to an undeserving man who does everything he can so that she marries another rich man and then give him the money she steals from the rich man. Of course, nothing goes as expected. The rich man is played by Spencer Tracy who was more at ease in Man's Castle alongside Loreeta Young but he's still decent here. It explores Borzage's favourite theme: love as a protection against poverty. People are all the richer because they are in love. As always with Borzage, the hopelessness of life is always counterbalanced by dignity and strong characters who move on no matter what. I love him so much, it's a shame the movie has never been released on DVD.

It's hard to believe it's taken me so long to watch a movie starring the Marx Brothers. I always seem to have so much to watch already, but I knew that someday I'd see one. Little did I know that I would enjoy it so much! Insanity doesn't even begin to cover it. So far, I've watched Monkey Business (1931) and Horse Feathers (1932) and plan on watching many many more. I realised the movies had the same qualities I can find in Pratchett's books: they are deeply humorous and warm, almost tender. It feels like coming home to a friend after a long day. I've also taken a habit of watching an episode of I Love Lucy before going to sleep.There are many episodes on YouTube, but not full seasons, unfortunately. Lucille Ball is incredible, it's packed with one-liners and physical comedy - again, can't believe it took me so long to discover this gem. As Sam Seaborn (a character in The West Wing, best show ever) would say, "I'll tell you what, let's forget about the fact that you're coming a little late to the party and embrace the idea that you showed up at all." Hear, hear!

Lucille Ball and Harpo Marx

And here's an episode of I Love Lucy (Lucy Writes a Play, 1x17) for your viewing pleasure (part 2 is here, last part here):

I felt completely foolish when I discovered I had never posted any Frank Sinatra here. This is just wrong. I prefer his more swingy stuff to his jazzy renditions but his voice does give me the butterflies no matter what he's singing. Plus, he died the day I turned ten. Is this a sign or what?
On January 27, 1961, Sinatra played a benefit show at Carnegie Hall for Martin Luther King, Jr. and would go on to play a major role in the desegregation of Nevada hotels and casinos in the 1960s. Sinatra led his fellow members of the Rat Pack and label-mates on Reprise in refusing to patronize hotels and casinos that wouldn't allow black singers to play live or wouldn't allow black patrons entry. He would often speak from the stage on desegregation. I think the compilation Nothing but the Best is just what it says it is. My three favourite songs sung by him are The Way You Look Tonight, New York, New York and Luck be a Lady, which are just perfect on this CD. So here it is for you. Have a wonderful week!

If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere
It's up to you - New York, New York

You gotta love livin', baby, 'cause dyin' is a pain in the ass.
~Frank Sinatra~

LISTEN HERE

It's one, long, loud l-a-u-g-h!

2009-03-28T14:45:00.028+01:00

>>>WIN AN OSCAR, CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

I Love You Again (1940) is as perfect as it gets. Powell is a god, Loy is a goddess and I chocked on my milkshake several times, it was hilarious. Such great acting coming from the leads, they have amazing chemistry. My favourite on-screen couple for sure! It belongs to the "estranged married couple falling in love all over again" category, to which The Awful Truth (a gem, I talked about it here) belongs as well. The tagline (see title) isn't misleading - this movie is pure fun from beginning to end. I must say Powell (who plays George Carey, an ex-con who suffers from amnesia and discovers he was an ex-con and tries to win back his wife) is an amazing actor and is perfect in comedies - he's lucky to have found Loy (Kay Wilson) who can deliver deadpan jokes like nobody's business. Some dialog to lure you in:

KAY WILSON: Where did you learn to dance like this?
GEORGE CAREY: By mail.

Some more:

GEORGE CAREY: You be careful madam, or you'll turn my pretty head with your flattery.
KAY WILSON: I often wished I could turn your head - on a spit, over a slow fire.

There's even a scene where Kay asks George if he'd like some eggs, and when he says yes, she suggests he wears them, and lets her eggs slide from her plate onto his head before leaving the room. That's Myrna for you!

Double Wedding (1937) may not have been as completely crazy as I Love you Again, but it was an excellent movie nonetheless. I feel the death of Jean Harlow might have had something to do with the tone of the movie - Powell and Loy's hearts just weren't into it. Harlow, who had been Powell's fiancée for 2 years, died at 26 during production and both Loy (who was a good friend of Harlow's) and Powell took it very hard. It has a sinister feel, even though some scenes are particularly excellent - the end is practically perfect in every way and it's hard not to laugh at a William Powell in a lady's fur coat. Some scenes reminded me of the wonderful Libeled Lady (talked about it here).

Love Crazy (I talked about it here), I Love you Again and Double Wedding are available in the Myrna Loy and William Powell Collection, along with Manhattan Melodrama and Evelyn Prentice which I have never seen. Let me put this plainly: I.WANT.THIS.BOXSET. I'll buy it as soon as possible, this is my top priority along with the Forbidden Hollywood boxsets, The Awful Truth and Libeled Lady. By the way, I'm taking donations (I'm joking, of course!).

♥
Don't they look simply divine?

MYRNA LOY: "Some perfect wife I am," she said, referring to her typecasting. "I've been married four times, divorced four times, have no children, and can't boil an egg."
WILLIAM POWELL: [when asked how he kept so slim] "I highly recommend worrying. It's much more effective than dieting."
MYRNA ABOUT WILLIAM: "I never enjoyed my work more than when I worked with William Powell. He was a brilliant actor, a delightful companion, a great friend and above all, a true gentleman."

As far as TV is concerned, I am still in the middle of my West Wing marathon. I'm a bit slow but that's just because I have finally given in to the lure of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I had never watched the show when it aired, although all my friends were addicted to it: when the show started to be broadcast here I was 11 and way too frightened of all the paranormal aspects of it to be tempted to watch it. After years of avoiding the show because it was too popular, I recently decided to give it a go. The first season is not the best, I feel: it has its interesting bits (three episodes in particular, Angel, Nightmares and Prophecy Girl which is the season finale) but overall it's very cliché and cheesy. However, I'm glad I've watched it all from the beginning, some characters really evolve, Cordelia for example, for whom I have a fondness because she reminds me of my cousin. At the end of the day, when it comes down to it, characters are the thing that make us want to stick to a show, a book, a movie - characters make a story. The situations are merely here to reveal them. So while I'm still not a fan of all the paranormal stuff, I enjoy the characters' personal development very much. I'm taking it all slowly, I'm trying not to rush and try to appreciate the show without too much pressure. If I ever reach the seventh season, I'll post about it. So far, I can tell you that I love Buffy (she's a great heroine, probably my favourite character), that I can't wait for Willow to have her moment of glory, that we get to see some very interesting things related to Xander, that Buffy/Angel is beautiful, that Angel alone is beautiful, that Spike is insanely cool and that I can't wait for Oz and Willow to finally talk.

Recently, I received my copy of the last part of the second season of Arthur, my very favourite cartoon. I am aware that this is a very didactic cartoon where the idea of tolerance is in every episode. However, I think that ultimately what saves it from being preachy is that it's extremely funny. Besides, it can be enjoyed by adults too as it is one of the few cartoons that keeps referencing itself - long-standing jokes are very common. It parodies a great deal of things as well. I heart this show so very much.

The Swimming-Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst was a fun read. While I wasn't as enthralled by it as I was by The Line of Beauty (which was a crazy, disturbing and wonderful experience), it was hard to put down. It's a book about many things, I'm not sure I could sum it up briefly. We follow Will during his many sexual adventures and as seems to be always the case with Hollinghurst, it allows for the exploration of different things - sex, love, art. In a way, I guess we could also say this book is about erotica and pornography and how close to real life they are - it's both a physical and intellectual experience to read a Hollinghurst novel and this one is no exception.
What I liked most about the novel is its scope. On cover of being an episodic novel where the main character meets as many as two new people per page, it addresses many issues and does so in a very effortless, warm way. It never feels forced. Will isn't completely lovable but he is always so charming you can't help but be under his spell. Betrayal also seems to be a common theme in Hollinghurst's novels - the ultimate one wasn't as devastating as in The Line of Beauty, but it had me question several things nonetheless.
I must say Hollinghurst is becoming one of my favourite authors, I love what he's doing.

Henry James' Washington Square was not at all a novel I thought James could write. It tells the story of Catherine who falls for a man who is rejected by her father, a doctor, because of the man's lack of fortune. What struck me the most was its humour:

In a country in which, to play a social part, you must either earn your income or make believe that you earn it, the healing art has appeared in a high degree to combine two recognised sources of credit.

This book could be entitled Persuasion, really. Not because of any similarity with Austen's own book - although James' writing is often very austenian - but because that's what the book is about: should Catherine listen to her father or follow her heart? The story takes some unexpected turns, and ultimately the best parts are the portrayals of the characters, especially that of the doctor. I enjoyed it because the plot was well-built - ascension, climax and fall - and the character well-drawn. I agree with Mark Le Fanu who, in his introduction to the new Oxford World's Classics edition, talks about just how dramatic this book is. It reads like a play. It's so completely different from what I've heard about him, which is why it probably makes a good introduction to his work - it's a transition of sorts. While it was a good read, I still do not feel it's representative of James' work so I am looking forward to opening my copy of Portrait of a Lady and compare the two. I have also been recommended The Golden Bowl at least twice. A movie adaptation of Washington Square was released in 1997 - I think the plot is a bit too flimsy to allow for a movie, so I'm curious to see how they dealt with it.

In unrelated news, Ronni posted her thoughts about something I said concerning childhood memories. If you remember, I said that I don't think people are critical enough of their childhood loves: I think all loves need to be reevaluated constantly and the best ones are the ones that stand the test of time. I didn't put it like that, but that is what I meant. So much of what I loved as a child I'm ashamed to have even liked today. I didn't read or watch that much when I was a child so it may be easier for me to just forget about those than it is for people who were really shaped by their childhood loves. I was shaped by a few (Arthur, for example, but I still discover new episodes today and I'm not ashamed of liking it today - it's a great show and "tolerance is better than bigotry" is a message I'm willing to stand behind - Little Women on the other hand...). I like Ronni's division a lot, even though it doesn't apply to me - in particular, the Head, Heart and Soul section. What she says is this:

Head, Heart and Soul: These texts are technically proficient. They possess themes which speak to me on a personal level and make me want to write about them and discuss them with other fans. But, most importantly, they make me reexamine who I am, make me want to change, to become better, to think more. These are the texts that I would quite possibly die to save. Thinking about these texts makes my life worth living.

The problem is not that I can't think of such texts, of course I can. If you've been reading this journal for some time I hope you've realised I'm very passionate about my obsessions. Who isn't? However, contrary to Ronni, I can't talk about them, they mean too much to me and apart from saying that, indeed, this changed my life, I don't know what else I can say. I constantly discover Head, Heart and Soul texts: I mean, look at this journal. I am not arguing that the things that affect you when you're a teen and willing to be shaped, longing to be shaped, even, waiting for something worth dying for, so to speak, are strong because they are a part of you. What I mean is that I think it's important to reread them no matter what afterwards - even if it's dangerous, even if it hurts. You may be surprised. In a bad way - I didn't know there was racism/misogyny/homophobia, take your pick, in this text, I'm disgusted, I don't understand, I'm hurt, I'm betrayed - but also in a good way - I am proud to have been shaped by this, I recognize the ideas and they're my own as well, we are one and always will be. I'm also going to make a distinction between childhood and teenagehood: I think you have much more chance of being shocked by a childhood love than by a teenage love. Ultimately, and this is very much my own opinion, I don't know to what extent people can agree with me, childhood loves entertain first, teenage loves shape first. If it shaped you, I think you have a better chance of finding it just as good as you remember it to be. If it entertained you, chances are you're going to reread it differently now and see other stuff, for better or for worse (girls should cook, play the mum and sew, anyone?). Don't be afraid of revisiting your memories, I think some of them really need to be desacralized - others can remain as sacred as you wish, but when I see people are still recommending things they'd be ashamed to read for the first time today, I can't help but wonder.

Now to music! Blues has always been one of my favourite genres - it touches me like nothing else, in fact. My favourite blues singer might just be Mississippi John Hurt, he's got such a sweet voice and his texts are so playful. So here he is, for your listening pleasure. Have a magical week!

LISTEN HERE

Oh, "damned" and "hell" - that's not swearing. They came out of the sinful category an age ago!

2009-03-21T10:37:00.023+01:00

>>>HAVE YOUR DAY, CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

Betsy Blair passed away on March 13. I've never seen any of her movies but I've read her autobiography entitled The Memory of All That years ago and it's always been one of my favourites. Betsy married Gene Kelly in 1941 and had a very interesting life of her own. I remember reading her autobiography - it's such an honest, interesting and funny book. I saw a lot of myself in her, she was interested in learning, improving herself and improving the world.

"To be very left-wing in Hollywood was to work for the unions, to work for the blacks, the ordinary things that are social democratic principles."

Classy 'till the end, she once said to an interviewer about Gene:

"I have nothing bad to say about Gene in any way ... We were married 16 years and it just came to an end."

I really like what a friend of hers had to say about her because it's really the impression I had when reading about her life. Betsy, you'll be missed.

"She was a tremendously loving, loyal and ceaselessly supportive friend — and really good, often wicked, fun. You could talk to her about absolutely anything — nothing shocked her."

Staying on topic (cinema), I'd like to say a few words about Night Nurse (1931). This movie is part of the second Forbidden Hollywood boxset released by Warner Bros last year. By the way, the third one will be released in 3 days. As soon as I have some more money, I'm going to purchase them all. Lora (Barbara Stanwyck) applies for a nursing job at the hospital and after having been initially rejected, she is hired even though she doesn't have a degree. She meets Miss Maloney, the woman who will become her best friend (Joan Blondell) and together they will uncover a plot to kill children for their trust funds (plot designed by Nick, played by Clark Gable).
First of all, let me say that Stanwyck and Blondell starring in the same movie is a match made in heaven. I love these two so very much ♥. Night Nurse has some hugely entertaining scenes, especially in the first part of it, but overall the plot was quite sinister and a bit boring. I don't think the detective story part worked well. A very young Clark Gable makes an appearance and I think his acting was even worse than in Gone With the Wind, which is saying something. He'd ruin a movie without even trying. I'd say watch this movie for Stanwyck and Blondell and for a good laugh during certain scenes but don't pay too much attention to the plot.

LORA HART: I'll kill the next one that says "ethics" to me.
MS MALONEY: Says you.
LORA HART: Yeah, says me in a big way, sister.

Barbara Stanwyck, a corpse (placed here by one of the doctors as a joke) and Joan Blondell showing their lingerie.

Frozen River was released last year. It stars Melissa Leo as Ray Eddy and Misty Upham as Lila Littlewolf. Leo was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. The screenplay focuses on two working class women (Ray and Misty) who are forced to smuggle illegal immigrants in the trunk of a car from Canada to the United States in order to make ends meet.
I'd been wanting to watch the movie ever since the day I heard about the Oscar nomination but it actually took this review written by Nan for me to see it. I think the story was well worth telling and important, especially the first half of the movie where Ray struggles to feed and take care of her two sons when she is only hired part-time at the local shop. Ultimately, however, it's a tough call. I kind of agree with Mick LaSalle (terrific and famous cinema lover, wrote many wonderful books). The acting, to me, wasn't noteworthy, just decent, and "under the guise of sincerity, [the film is] fundamentally insincere, and while posing as gritty, it's in fact sentimental." I expected more from it but in the end the plot took all the expected turns. I will remember the attempt, perhaps not so much the final result.

>>>BE A PINK LADY, CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

I've also watched Grease (1978) for the upteenth time. It was my favourite movie when I was 13, which means nothing as to its quality. I'm very suspicious of my teenage and childhood loves as I don't think half of them were based on merit. You won't find me writing about how wonderful something is based solely on my childhood memories of it. Anyway, the last time I saw it I was 13 and I've recently felt the urge to watch it again and desacralize the idea I had of it. I'm happy to say it stood the test of time. It's such a good movie with a good storyline, some excellent songs and a terrific feel of the 60s. This movie makes me so happy. It's full of clichés but the director was smart enough to dismiss them as clichés in the credits at the beginning: Sandy, the naïve cheerleader who ends up with the bad boy is seen waking up and being dressed by birds. I think that's a witty move. Sandy's makeover at the end is one of the best parts, so here it is for your viewing pleasure:

DANNY: Sandy?!
SANDY: Tell me about it, stud.

Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters took me a while to finish but I'm so glad I've read it. I'll need some time to emerge from it, it's a 800-page book (only 5% of their whole correspondence, can you believe it?) and I'm so happy I've read it. Some of it was really disturbing (Deborah's and Diana's correspondence in particular - Deborah's not as good a person as I thought she was) and even bizarre. For example, Jessica mentions how wonderful Natasha Richardson is in a letter written in 1986. Felt completely strange reading that yesterday - I mean, what a coincidence. At the end, Deborah gives her opinion to Diana about Diana Spencer's death and it felt so close to today it was disturbing as well, especially since her opinion is quite infuriating. I know that Deborah is still alive but one can't help but picturing the Mitfords as firmly rooted in the craziness of the 30s. Yet the letters begin way before the Second World war and end in 2003. It's a great historical document, funny, shocking and heartbreaking.
However, I would strongly recommend reading Jessica's letters first because Charlotte Mosley, who edited this book, had to leave so many of Decca's letters out to avoid redundance so Jessica appears as fairly distant and cold when she's just the opposite when one reads her letters (Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford).
Now that I've read The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate, Hons and Rebels, Decca's letters, the sisters' letters, I want to continue with my Mitford discovery and read more of Nancy's books (The Blessing and Don't Tell Alfred in particular), as well as The American Way of Death written by Jessica. I'm not interested in biographies of them, they're really too complex for biographies and had such different lives - and besides I've heard bad reviews of the biographies published thus far (too biased towards one sister for example).

Now on to music. The Grease soundtrack seems like an obvious choice. But I won't post that. Instead, I want to post a bit of Elvis on this blog because clearly, a world without Elvis is a world without fun. Here's a compilation of 30 of his #1 hits. I think it's a very good CD which shows his versatility.

Elvis, Elvis, let me be!
Keep that pelvis far from me!
Just keep your cool
Now you're starting to drool
Hey Fongool, I'm Sandra Dee!

LISTEN HERE

Have a beautiful and fun week!

Book Buying

2009-03-14T18:51:00.011+01:00

It's that time of the month. It's been 30 days already since my last order, can you believe it? How time flies when you're busy.

1) First of all, three Henry James books for my 2009 reading challenge. I did not choose them at random. I wanted three books and I don't want my collection of books to contain any overlapping (a little OCD of me if you wish). In case Henry James just happens to become one of my favourite authors (you never know) and I decide to collect all of his writings, The Library of America has published some neat volumes of his novels, short stories and travel writings so I followed their classification and instead of buying the books in the Library of America edition (one book for all three novels, which would break my wrist) I bought them in the new and improved Oxford World's Classics edition. This way, if I ever want to discover more of his stuff that isn't published the OWC edition, I can pick any Library of America volume and I won't have any overlapping in my library.

The Bostonians
Satirical novel by Henry James, published serially in Century Illustrated Magazine in 1885-86 and in book form in three volumes in 1886. It was one of the earliest American novels to deal--even obliquely--with lesbianism. Olive Chancellor, a Boston feminist in the 1870s, thinks she has found a kindred spirit in Verena Tarrant, a beautiful young woman who, though passive and indecisive, is a spellbinding orator for women's rights. Olive vies for Verena's attention and affections with Basil Ransom, a gracious but reactionary Confederate army veteran. Verena marries Basil and leaves Boston. The Bostonians is based on Alphonse Daudet's novel L'Evangeliste (1883); James transposed the work to Boston and to the milieu of the rising feminist movement.

The Portrait of a Lady
When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American, is brought to Europe by her wealthy Aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved to determine her own fate, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors. She then finds herself irresistibly drawn to Gilbert Osmond, who, beneath his veneer of charm and cultivation, is cruelty itself. A story of intense poignancy, Isabel's tale of love and betrayal still resonates with modern audiences.

Washington Square
James's astute story of a plain heiress and the poor, handsome suitor who may or may not love her only for her wealth ... James credits the young woman from the start with nothing more Oscar-worthy than a certain dull ordinariness. (Pretty dull summary as well but what can you do?)

2) I discovered Alan Hollinghurst through his excellent book The Line of Beauty (I talked about it here) and I've been wanting to read more of his works ever since, so I bought two books:

The Swimming-Pool Library

The Swimming Pool Library weaves a rich and fascinating tapestry of Britain's gay subculture spanning pre-World War I through the sexually abandoned early '80s, stopping short at the doorstep of AIDS. Hollinghurst's prose is fresh, witty and wise, and his ever-surprising, sinuously unfurling story is told with insouciant grace and unabashed sexuality. BOMC and QPBC alternates.

The Folding Star
Edward Manners, a 33-year-old aspiring British writer, arrives in a Flemish town to work as a private tutor in English, only to find himself obsessively smitten with one of his pupils, Luc Altidore, a 17-year-old expelled from school.

3) And two completely unrelated books. If you've followed this journal, there's no need for explanation, if you don't know what I'm talking about, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett are two authors I've discovered this year during my fantasy and science fiction challenge and I love them both and want to complete my collection. Reaper Man is the second book if you follow Death's storyline in Discworld.

Neverwhere
Neverwhere's protagonist, Richard Mayhew, learns the hard way that no good deed goes unpunished. He ceases to exist in the ordinary world of London Above, and joins a quest through the dark and dangerous London Below, a shadow city of lost and forgotten people, places, and times. His companions are Door, who is trying to find out who hired the assassins who murdered her family and why; the Marquis of Carabas, a trickster who trades services for very big favors; and Hunter, a mysterious lady who guards bodies and hunts only the biggest game. London Below is a wonderfully realized shadow world, and the story plunges through it like an express passing local stations, with plenty of action and a satisfying conclusion. The story is reminiscent of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but Neil Gaiman's humor is much darker and his images sometimes truly horrific. Puns and allusions to everything from Paradise Lost to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz abound, but you can enjoy the book without getting all of them. Gaiman is definitely not just for graphic-novel fans anymore.

Reaper Man
They say there are only two things you can count on ... But that was before DEATH started pondering the existential. Of course, the last thing anyone needs is a squeamish Grim Reaper and soon his Discworld bosses have sent him off with best wishes and a well-earned gold watch. Now DEATH is having the time of his life, finding greener pastures where he can put his scythe to a whole new use.

Rattle His Bones

2009-03-14T09:40:00.021+01:00

>>>CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

I've just finished The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. He has officially become one of my favourite writers. This book was fantastic - his characters are so genuinely nice. It's a horrible word, it's so common but I can't find any other. I love him, his stories are so warm. I cried at the end: I was sorry to leave Bod, but then I always cry at the end of a Gaiman book.
I'm sure you all know what the plot is: a baby is raised by an entire graveyard of ghosts and different moments of his life are narrated. I thought the episodic form worked quite well in the end even though I was suspicious of it at first. It worked because the stories all came together at the end. The only point I think wasn't so good is the villain of the book about whom we didn't know much, this is the only time I felt it was a children's book. As usual in his books, Gaiman always does amazing portayals of girls and women. In The Graveyard Book, a little girl named Scarlett made a lasting impression on me, similar to that of Coraline or Yvaine. I love how they're not idealized, just genuinely explained for who they are. It's hard to find in literature, when you think about it.
I would absolutely recommend this book. If you've read Gaiman, you'll know why. If you haven't, you're in for a treat - we're so lucky to have him. My only concern is that since it was a postal group book, I now have to pass it on and can't keep this gorgeous hardback copy to myself. I will buy a paperback copy to embellish my shelves and reread the story in October. Best to support the authors you love, especially when they're alive.

Continuing with my pre-code discovery, I watched another movie that is available in the first Forbidden Hollywood boxset: the 1931 version of Waterloo Bridge (the original version). I've always liked the 1940 remake starring Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor (who are both very easy on the eyes, let's be honest) and I still like it very much but the 1931 version is far superior. First of all, one word: Mae Clarke. This actress deserved an Academy Award and I'm astonished to find she wasn't even nominated. Not only that but she's completely forgotten today. This is wrong, her performance is absolutely stunning. She can play a seductress on the bridge picking up men to survive, she can play a woman losing her mind when she can't tell her secret for fear of losing the respect of the person she cares for the most. I know Mae has a memorable part in The Public Enemy, which I must watch someday.
When the 1940 version has a very romantic end, the 1931 version is much more brutal but I couldn't think of any other way to do it since the subject matter is treated with more realism than in the remake. It's prostitution we're talking about and truth be told I think nobody believed Vivien Leigh as a prostitute at all. I find it surprising that a remake was even considered let alone filmed because of the subject matter that is so quintessentially pre-code. I thought the relationship between Myra (played by Mae Clarke) and Roy (Douglass Montgomery, who is a very average actor if not worse) was very well depicted, I liked it a lot and I never could tell where Myra stood: on the one hand, he's so genuinely nice she doesn't want to hurt his feelings, on the other hand, she needs money to survive.

I also went to the cinema to see Watchmen. I didn't know much about the movie except that it was a comic book first so I had no particular expectations. It's a movie about history and myths, not about superheros who save the world (well, okay, they do that, but it serves a purpose). It's a very complex movie and I think I need to watch it again to understand it better, there are so many things going on at once. To put it simply (and perhaps it's too simple), there are two plots in this movie: one to do with a murder investigation and another to do with the Cold War, the end of the world and the Vietnam War. I was interested in both and as you may imagine they are closely related. It certainly was food for thought as it questions the very myths that make the United States, even if the acting was a bit off-putting at times (Malin Akerman's performance in particular). Overall, I think that if you manage to understand it all, the movie makes some valid and interesting points but perhaps it could have been a bit more explained for the audience who hadn't read the comic (I belong to that category). On the other hand, far be it from me to call for simplification of complex and multi-layered works so I'm in the middle here. The first thing I wanted to do when walking out of the cinema was 1) read the comic 2) see the movie again 3) talk about it with other people. So I'd say my first Watchmen experience was very positive.

In other news, I'm completely obsessed with Lily Allen's new album called It's not Me It's You. Her lyrics and songs are once again very refreshing (witty and sexy) and I think this one's as good as the first. But I'm perhaps even more obsessed (if that's possible) with Pete Doherty. I can now totally separate his private life from his work. He's a really good songwriter and singer, and I think deep down a good soul. It just shows. I wish I could save him from drugs because his songs are some of the best I've heard recently and it's not fair that he should be an addict. Anyway, as you probably know, he's released two CDs with his rock band The Libertines, both are excellent, two CDs with his second band Babyshambles and one solo album called Grace/Wastelands will be released on Monday. The first single from the album is called The Last of the English Roses and it's a gem. So here are two things: The Last of the English Roses and the song that started it all for me, The Lost Art of Murder (live) from his days with Babyshambles.

I've had an Ella Fitzgerald week and it was heaven. I've listened to the Complete Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks on Deezer and it was one of the best musical experiences of my life. Up till now, I had always said to anyone who asked that Billie Holiday was my favourite singer. I don't think there needs to be competition but in my mind Billie was way more playful and genuine and heartbreaking than Ella whom I frankly found stuck too much to the original songs and felt a bit robotic. To me, Billie gave emotion, Ella gave technical achievement at best. Boy was I wrong. Ella Fitzgerald is amazing and that needs to be said. I was in awe listening to this 16-cd boxset. My favourite songbook was the Rodgers and Hart one when most people feel the Cole Porter one is the best. I think that for her rendition of The Lady is a Tramp alone the Rodgers and Hart one deserves the first spot. She has fun with a whole band and you have fun with her -I was smiling all the way through. The whole boxset was spectacular and the only downside is that now I'm obsessed with the idea of owning it forever. Of course it's way too expensive although when you divide by the number of CDs and consider the quality, it's a true bargain. Perhaps one day!

And of course, here is the best of the songbooks for your listening pleasure. Just hit play, sit back, close your eyes and when The Lady is a Tramp plays, grab the other person in the room and dance.

Kiss a lover,
Dance a Measure,
Find your name and buried treasure...
Face your life,
It's pain it's pleasure,
Leave no path untaken.
~~The Graveyard Book~~

I like the green grass under my shoes
What can I lose, I'm flat, that's that
I'm alone when I lower my lamp
That's why the lady is a tramp
~~Ella, Always Ella~~

Have a glorious day!

LISTEN HERE

She climbed the ladder of success - wrong by wrong!

2009-03-09T18:38:00.017+01:00

>>>CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

I adore Barbara Stanwyck. She may just be one of my favourite actresses. She's got a husky voice that's to die for and excells in every genre. Baby Face is no exception to the rule. While the cast of supporting characters is decent at best, Stanwyck's Lily has one fascinating personality. Baby Face was released for the first time in April 1933, before the Production Code, and a censored version (due to complaints from the New York State Censorship Board) was released in June 1933. I saw the uncensored version.

The plot is quite simple: Lily makes a living by being a waitress in a small town. She is aware of her charms and wants more but doesn't know how to find it. One day, she realises (with some great help from one of her friends who coaches her) she can have anything she wants from men provided she uses her beauty to get it. Lily goes to New York with her friend and maid Chico and climbs the social ladder by having relationships with important men. However, in the second part of the movie she realises there may be more to life than that. She doesn't repent nor is she punished but can't deny she has feelings anymore and ultimately saves the man she betrayed the most. I'm not fond of the ending. You can tell it was done in the 30s whereas the rest of the movie seems very contemporary. On the other end, Hollywood hasn't changed, apparently the producers still think people need a romantic ending to everything.
It's a compelling and very funny movie. Funny because so daring. Stanwyck plays sexy Lily with a naughtiness that only she could have brought to the part. A few scenes are very memorable.

Small town Lily dreams of New York.

Chico and Lily gossip about a politician who's just entered the café. Their relationship is frankly surprising for 1933: everywhere she goes, Lily hears racist and disrespectful remarks about Chico, yet she says one thing and sticks to it: "If she goes, I go", "If I stay she stays". I was very pleasantly surprised, it's not often you get to see such a relationship on screen in the 30s. Chico is played by Theresa Harris, she's a terrific actress. Yet Chico becomes Lily's maid later in the movie, even though she's clearly the only one who understands her. That was disturbing.

Lily pours hot coffee on the important politician's hand - he was touching her thigh without asking. She is to set the rules.

Turning point in the movie - Lily is coached by an old friend:
A woman, young, beautiful like you, can get anything she wants in the world. Because you have power over men. But you must use men, not let them use you. You must be a master, not a slave. Look here – Nietzsche says, “All life, no matter how we idealize it, is nothing more nor less than exploitation”. That's what I'm telling you. Exploit yourself. Go to some big city where you will find opportunities. Use men! Be strong! Defiant! Use men to get the things you want!

Lily and Chico go to New York by way of train and have to hide in one of the carriages because they aren't paying. A man finds them and Lily decides to use her mentor's advice for the first time - she seduces the railway agent (it's fairly explicit) while Chico hums a song, leaves them together and smile.

Lily enjoys her success. She's managed to reach the highest floor of the building - that of the director.

I thoroughly enjoyed Vita Sackville-West's The Edwardians. It's a good, very honest book about aristocracy, I thought. I was very much a commentary on aristocratic life and I didn't expect it to be so blunt (Sackville-West writes characters who comment on their own life, it's very original). In 1930, it is astounding indeed, considering that we can say a real system of class existed until at least World War I, or even II. The trouble-maker of the book, the one character who reveals the vacuity of his friends' lives to them is Anquetil, a self-made man. One of his contributions in particular I think summarizes the whole book. It's terrifying.

My dear boy, your life was mapped out for you from the moment you were born. You went to a preparatory school; you went to Eton; you are now at Oxford; you will go into the Guards; you will have various love-affairs, mostly with fashionable married women; you will frequent wealthy and fashionable houses; you will attend Court functions; you will wear a scarlet uniform -- and look very handsome in it too -- you will be flattered and persecuted by every mother in London; you will eventually become engaged to a suitable young lady; you will marry her [...] you will then acquire the habit of being unfaithful to your wife and she to you [...], on the first of October you will shoot pheasants, you will begin to wonder if your son wants you to die[...]

I leave you with Louis Armstrong playing St Louis Blues, with Velma Middelton singing, which is the trademark of the movie Baby Face. It can actually be a pretty saucy song when you think about it in this context. I added a fairly good selection of his songs after St Louis Blues. I honestly don't know if there's anything better in life than listening to Louis Armstrong. Perhaps seeing him perform live. So enjoy one of the greatest pleasures you can ever have!

LISTEN HERE