TRH TV – 24 & Rome

Okay, so my New Year’s Revolution not to watch so much television is actually working (I’m only on week 2, but still). The only two shows I watched this whole weekend (Saturday and Sunday) were 24 and Rome. And if you haven’t watched either show yet and they are sitting patiently on your Faux-Vos, please ignore as some of the following might be construed as spoiler-esque.

On the whole, I loved 24 but felt that it was a bit forced in terms of the set up and some of the situations. Sometimes the exposition is so painful (i.e., Karen talks to Bill, LOOKS at her wedding rings, and says, “I wish you were here.”) because they don’t give enough credit to the audience that we’d get what was going on without the characters overtly telling us. But anyway, here’s what I learned/thought last night:

1. Jack is always right. He’s been right for five seasons, why is it that when it comes down to making THE decision, the President rarely listens?

2. Chinese prison must be very sunny. Why else would Jack have a tan? And when he cut his hair his neck was still tanned too.

3. He also must have been fed very well; there’s not a muscle out of place, even when he takes his shirt off and reveals the SIGNS OF TORTURE, you’re still like, whoa, Jack’s been working out!

4. Alexander Siddig must get super-tired of getting blown up, and his character seems straight out of Syriana, but whatever, there’s this one scene where he’s just so absolutely frightening that it gave me chills.

5. Kal Penn playing against type (slightly) is funny. I know it’s wrong of me because he’s a Serious Actor now, especially with the film version of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake coming out. But seriously dude, I’ll bet he was Jonesing for a White Castle when the FBI came around and tore up his sh*t and took his dad away. And what’s up with him playing a kid in, and am I correct about this, high school? First off, he may be trim but he still looks like a man and he’s 30, or there abouts. A bit of the Andrea Zuckerman going on there.

6. Chloe. Rocks. Even if she is going out with the FoodTV guy that used to date this woman who terrorized me in grade school but then made up for it when I lost my mom and used to call me all the time and be really sweet and sh*t.

7. What’s up with Peter MacNicol’s eye makeup? Seriously? It’s like George on Grey’s Anatomy where they can’t get the balance right between “shading” and “overtly colouring the lids so that he could step on stage in the drag show at Il Convento Rico.”

8. And if he’s (Peter MacNicol, see above) a baddie, well, that sucks because we’ve been there done that last season and I didn’t much appreciate the tense, “I’m thinking very hard about this situation and have my hand on my chin in Deep Thought” moments. Yawn.

9. Please, please do not let the fact that neither Kim nor Audrey know that Jack’s out of Chinese prison mean that we’re in for tearful reunions. Please. I beg you.

10. I got a little choked up when Jack said, “I don’t remember how to do this.” In the promos for tonight’s episodes. Aw, Sensitive Jack is very appealing, even if you know within a matter of, well, hours, he’ll have strapped on his Sidebag of Super Tricks and stepped off a plane knowing that he can absolutely make a parachute by the time he almost hits the ground.

Sigh. I am SO glad 24 is back. Oh, and Rome wasn’t bad either, but that’s Serious TV; it’s HBO, so even though you know you won’t understand ALL of it, it’ll still be miles better than anything else that might be on. And Marc Antony takes his shirt off, A LOT.

The Soundtrack Of Your Life’s Work

One of the suggestions that my mentor came back with in her first comments about finding your voice and getting really into your characters and their story, is to find a piece of music that truly suits what you’re writing—something to get your mental juices flowing.

The only thing is, I don’t even know where to start. I mean, I’ve got music, lots of it, that I find inspiring, but nothing that suits the piece. It’s set in Ontario at the turn of the century and there’s not a single song that screams: “This is your character! Pay attention to me.”

In my mind, the closest I’ve come is Neil Young’s “Helpless.” I wish I had a list of traditional Irish ballads, that might work, or even if I had an idea of what kind of music was popular in New York City at that time, I could find something that might keep the characters firmly entrenched in the period they’re supposed to be existing within.

So now, I’ve got to do some research on what I should probably find inspiring even before I get inspired to re-write the stories I’ve already recorded on the page.

Bloodletting & Non-Miraculous Events

Okay. Here’s a note of what not to do:

Never, ever get the blood requisitions for two different doctors done on the same day in the hope of saving time and energy. What happens? You end up very, very, very lightheaded trying to make awkward conversation in the waiting room with a girl you went to high school with but didn’t recognize.

Then, you eat a giant chocolate bar and call your RRHB 14x to pick you up because you don’t think you can make it on the streetcar, can’t get through, forget you have to buy your brother a birthday card and then fall asleep on the 10 minute ride almost missing your stop.

Consumption Redux II

Okay, so I don’t often mix work with blogging but I have some extra copies of Consumption to give away to anyone who wants to read it. I’d really like other people to read it so that a) I can talk to them about it and b) to see if anyone else thinks it’s as good as I do (like, still, the best book I’ve read since Joan Clark’s An Audience of Chairs or Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking) and c) to share the love. What good does it do to be in January without something brightening up the dull, grey post-holiday blues?

Holler via email if you want a copy.

#3 – The Emperor’s Children

“Do you hang on to clothes you haven’t worn for ten years? Or bags of pasta, cans of beans?”
Danielle did not need to answer.
“What is it about books? Perfectly rationale people get crazy about their books. Who has time for that?”
“I measure my life out in books.”
“You should be measuring your life by living. Correction: you shouldn’t be measuring your life. What’s the point?”

Claire Messud’s massively addictive, massively hefty novel ended up on more than one ‘best of’ list this year, not the least of which was its inclusion in the NY Times “The 10 Best Books of 2006.” The Times describes the novel as ‘superbly intelligent’ and a ‘keenly observed comedy of manners,’ and I would not disagree. But it’s long. And it’s wordy, which is in complete contrast to the 2nd book in my Around the World in 52 Books challenge, A True Story Based on Lies.

At first glance, too, Messud’s novel seems to retread over well-worn territory, especially for me, in a year where I also read The Good Life and Elements of Style, tackling yet another book about New Yorkers and the tragedy (and its aftermath) of 9/11 might be a bit much for my already broken heart to take.

But that’s where I was wrong, Messud’s book, while earnest in its intention to examine the subject matter, is not earnest in its narrative style or tone. And the elements of satire that appear as a result of her ability to take these characters so deep into themselves without necessarily letting them in on the joke, ensures that the novel feels a little like a Restoration play written in our very modern age.

The plot of the novel follows the lives three college friends, Marina, Julian and Danielle, ten years or so after their graduation, who are now firmly ensconced in their adult lives, which means essentially nothing considering they are as much adrift as they ever were, from a few months before 9/11 until just after the attacks. There is a firm cast of supporting characters, Julian’s boyfriend, Danielle’s mother, Marina’s socially awkward and strangely surreal cousin with the odd nickname of Bootie, along with the ‘Emperor’ himself, Marina’s father Murray Thwaite, an accomplished, and older, infamous journalist in the style of Hemingway, who smokes, drinks and, ahem, well, you know.

Marina, beautiful, lost and finishing her own manuscript, deliciously self-absorbed and ridiculously Paris-Hilton-with-brains (entitled) in her approach to her life looks to her best friends, Julian, a freelance writer in a totally destructive relationship, and Danielle, the one with the stable job, stable life, stable outlook, to guide her as she lands back home while attempting to finish her book about children’s clothes. Life happens. Love happens. Lots happens. But as the planes crash into the two towers, no one in the novel comes out unscathed.

Messud’s talent for long, breathy sentences with many, many commas, dashes and other forms of punctuation, means that we know so much about each character, from their brand of Scotch to the workings of their inner minds, that there’s always the fear the book will careen off the page. Yet, her skill as novelist means that all of the many threads of their lives are woven into an immaculate quilt, with not a single stitch out of place.

It’s fitting, somehow, that my book from the United States, is about New York City, the one place that’s been so ingrained in our psyches from books, from film, from television, that it seems so much more than the sum of its magnificent parts. Oddly, it’s an apt description of The Emperor’s Children as well, it’s a magnum opus of a book, an epic of a tale that carries you in and around its over 400 pages without leaving you lost in Alphabet City in the middle of a scorching hot summer season.

If I have one, teeny, tiny criticism, it’s that my heart remains firmly in tact, and as much as I admire Messud’s skill as a wordsmith, I wanted more in terms of emotional involvement, and even in the book’s penultimate moment, when my favourite character, Danielle, finally falls apart, I didn’t ever get that catch in my throat I felt while reading Consumption. But it’s not like every book can (or should) make you cry.

Books Are In My Blood

As if I didn’t know that already, but yesterday, when I should have been editing my latest Classic Starts, I got sucked into doing some ancestral research. When I was in Vancouver visiting my aunt and uncle in November, we were talking about the history of the family, a familiar topic, when it was mentioned in passing that my great-great grandfather was a publisher in London. Now, a publisher of what or when exactly, not to mention whether he worked for someone else or for himself, has still yet to be discovered.

However, I did find some fascinating things. His grandfather, John Mardon, was a Bookseller (as listed in the 1841 census) in St. Sepulchre, or at least that’s the parish where he lived when the census was taken. Now, I got to thinking that he too must have published books because, well, if you sold them back then most likely you published as well, and low and behold, here, I’ve found what I think must be a pamphlet he either published or distributed in 1833.

Now, it’s only 50 pounds, so I might buy it, but honestly, how cool is that?

On Setting Aside The Ego

Well, the mail carried with it the first of my mentor’s comments for my Humber Correspondance program. Daunting would be the word I use to describe it; and even though I know it’s necessary to break down every last bit of the work in order to build it back up again, I can’t help but feel a bit defeated. Which then pushes me back into thinking about my interview with Wayne Johnston, who said that there’s no shame in discovering yourself a reader and not a writer.

And now I’ve got to spend the rest of the day revising my Classic Starts. Something that’s taken me far, far, far longer than it really should.

Ruth Rendell On Getting Older

What a great article by Ruth Rendell about her philosophy about growing older. Of the many things I like about what she has to say about both the prejudices about the so-called third generation and her own particular ideas about her age, I’d have to say the advice I’m going to follow is about dressing 10 years younger.

Now, that’s the last link-based post for today. I promise.