- I finally watched Happy-Go-Lucky and loved it. Mike Leigh has such a distinct point of view as a filmmaker, and truly understands the power of comedy. Laughter is a razor-sharp tool in his hands. If you’re a Netflix subscriber, this one is available as a watch instantly.

- Speaking of a distinct point of view, if you feel like every realistic YA novel you pick up sounds the same and you’re tired of it, read Bennett Madison’s The Blonde of the Joke.  It reminded me somehow of The Virgin Suicides, though it’s been so many years since I read that book I can’t say exactly why.

- And speaking of the deadly knife-edge of humor, Jon Stewart needs a special Emmy for these eight-plus minutes that amount to a TKO of Glenn Beck.

- A.O. Scott has an article in the Sunday Times about children’s movies, mostly, but really all of his (very insightful) observations apply to YA and kid books as well (and the contrast between them and entertainment for adults). Among other things, he writes:

Sometimes we make too much of the division between generations, which is after all not a gap but a continuum. Every adult is a former child, just as every child is an incipient adult, and at their best, children’s film and literature (which of course are almost never made by children themselves) is an attempt to communicate across this distance. Young viewers may see a premonition of what lies ahead as well as a sympathetic rendering of what they already know, whereas adults may find pleasure in recalling old hurts and relief that they are not at the mercy of them.

- Of all the public radio podcasts I download week after week, the one that most often moves me intellectually, and emotionally, is To the Best Of Our Knowledge. The current episode on war and the theme “Esprit de Corps” is particularly moving and relevant to the news of the week.

- As a writer and reader of the “small” and “domestic,” I give Lizzie Skurnick a big, fat thank you for her response to the now-infamous woman-free Publishers Weekly Top Ten of 2009.

- In case you missed the news, my brilliant agent is moving to L.A. to open up a West Coast office for Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. I am very excited about this for business reasons, and selfishly happy that Michael will be 1500 miles closer.

There you go. One link for each day until I’ll be back to write a legit post. Yes, I know some of you are eagerly awaiting my What I Love About Boredom and Loneliness post, and yes, perhaps I’m stalling. Until then!

Moving on…

Via The Curator, I came across this Guardian article about the “stuff-a-lanche” most of us are now living under. The article is spot-on for me (though I’m not sure I want a government employee to pick my book of the month…maybe an awesome librarian). This in particular made me laugh:

…Scenes From a Marriage and The Seventh Seal – two well-regarded Ingmar Bergman films I bought during a short-lived fit of self-improvement. I should have thrown them in a bin on my way home from the shop. It’s hard enough to choose between the two: am I in the mood for a lyrical 92-minute meditation on death, or an unflinching three-hour portrayal of a dysfunctional relationship? Neither, as it turns out. They’d only be interrupted by emails and texts anyway.

Meanwhile, my Netflix envelope full of Babette’s Feast has been sitting on my DVD player for a month. It’s one of those movies that, when I mention I haven’t seen it, makes all my friends go bug-eyed and clutch their throats in horror. I’m sorry! I mean to watch it! But I also have half a season of 30 Rock to catch up on!

(While I’m apologizing to my friends and while a fourteen-minute Jeff Buckley song is playing on KRCL I would like to add: I do not like Jeff Buckley.)

Next…

I was in line at the Dollar Tree yesterday, as I often seem to be lately, when I struck up a conversation with two high school girls in front of me whose cart was full of baby dolls. “That’s a lot of babies,” I said. It turns out that they and some of their friends were independently launching a month of awareness of the importance of comprehensive sex education in high school. Utah, which has adhered to the abstinence only model, recently decided that parents can choose between abstinence only and comprehensive (actually, the teens can “choose” but can only do comprehensive with parental consent).

Now, don’t get me wrong. Abstinence has some great stuff going for it. It works for preventing pregnancy and disease, if you do it, and greatly uncomplicates your emotional and possibly spiritual life during a time that is already complicated enough, and there is a lot to be said for putting off decisions about your sex life until after you become an adult. I mean, really and truly, I recommend it. But if as a society we want to reduce unwanted pregnancies, abortion, STDs, and poverty, every single post-puberty human should know how to use a condom, and understand the difference between myth and fact when it comes to pregnancy and disease. So to the girls from West High with their cart full of babies who are doing their part, I say kudos.

I read Dale Loves Sophie to Death by Robb Forman Dew, a book I’d never heard of until it showed up on the National Book Foundation’s 60 Years of the NBAs blog. You know I love “domestic fiction,” (or literary fiction, as it is called when written by a man) and Harold Augenbraum’s description intrigued me. Especially the part about it being short. Short books are the best! It’s well written and I was compelled to finish, but I’m not sure I enjoyed it as much as Harold did. Published in 1981, it’s probably among the last (few?) contemporary stories of family life straddling the baby boom era and the birth of generation x, and that in itself is interesting. It’s kind of somewhere between John Updike and Anne Tyler, maybe, in terms of the tone.

Also, I read Rebecca Stead’s new middle grade novel, When You Reach Me. I really, really responded to this book. It’s set in 1979 and narrated by a latchkey kid who loves Madeleine L’Engle, growing up in the city, being raised by a single mom. That’s pretty much my childhood right there, so she had me at hello. But on top of that there’s a great story and though I sort of absentmindedly picked up the book while G. watched a bike race last night, once I started I couldn’t stop til I was done. I kept having to get up and retrieve my notebook and pen to capture some of the memories of my pre-junior-high school life I’d forgotten. I think it’s the first MG book I’ve read since actually being middle grade that I gave myself over to wholly as a reader…not thinking like a writer, not nit-picking, not being jealous, not wanting to go do something else. (The short chapters help—perfect for reluctant readers like me.) I’m not much of a crier at books, but Rebecca moved me. Clearly I now need to go read First Light.

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And I watched movies! Gigantic (not bad), The Informers (kind of bad, except for Brad Renfro’s brilliant performance, which made me super sad, again, about his death), Good Night, and Good Luck (well done, interesting, maybe a little too educational, but I’ve always had a crush on David Strathairn), and Hopscotch (still great).

(Strathairn as Edward R. Murrow.)

2. I am totally chagrined by last night’s SYTYCD elimination. Max is an incredibly strong dancer. But then, this season it seems like they all are, so every week will be devastating, I’m sure.

3. I want to thank, hug, clasp hands with, send flowers to everyone who has already responded to Once Was Lost. Between your tweets and emails and blog posts, I’m feeling grateful that you have made the Season of Nausea less stressful, and am excited for fall. (And, FYI to bloggers, I do not have any ARCs to send you, I’m sorry! If you have a review site and want one, you’ll need to contact my publicist. With a modicum of effort, you will find her contact info on this site.)

4. Yesterday I finally watched Shut Up & Sing, the documentary about the fallout for the Dixie Chicks after Natalie Maines made a negative comment about Bush. It’s very good (and maddening), dishing up a lot of food for thought: What is patriotism? Was what happened to them censorship? How does the near-monopoly situation of the broadcasting industry filter what we get to hear and see, even when there is no specific controversy? What if a grizzly dude instead of an attractive female had made same comment? The immediate reactions after the fact included referring to the women of the Chicks as twits, sluts, bimbos, and airheads. When you watch the documentary, it’s obvious they are none of those things, not even close. You know the rhetoric would have been different (or non-existent) if they were not young, cute women. As a writer, I was especially interested in their conversations after the fact with their manager about what kind of artists they want to be. How far should any artist have to go in playing the game?

5. I’m getting out into the wild for a few days. I may try blogging from my phone, just for kicks, but I should probably resist that impulse when I’m trying to get back to nature. We’ll see. So, see you late next week if not before!

I did get to watch a lot of movies. I re-watched some favorites, like State and Main and Cop Land, and also new-ish stuff like My Kid Could Paint That and Gardens of the Night. Netflix adds more and more stuff to their watch-it-now service all the time; last night we watched about half The Show Off, a 1926 silent movie, in which Louise Brooks wears the most perfect dress (a picture of which I cannot find to show you). Then at 8:30, I fell asleep. Cuz that’s how I roll.

Tomorrow, flu be damned, I am throwing myself back into routine. Now that I’m through my course of Tamiflu, hopefully I can concentrate enough to write. It’s so hard to get back into a work when you’ve taken more than a week off! I hate it. Once I’m there it will be fine, but the initial transition is kind of hellish.

Speaking of the sun, I saw Sunshine Cleaning with Sarah this weekend, and absolutely loved it. It was at the local indie theater, and I don’t think the older couple behind us had ever been to an indie theater. All through the previews, the man kept saying, “They’ve got some weird shows here.” And then, at a very poignant moment in the film, same man commented to his wife, while rattling his popcorn, “I get a free refill.” Good to know.

Speaking of previews, preview for The Informers gave me the strangest sense of deja vu. If you’re around my age (38), watch it and see what I mean. I completely felt 17 again, the age I was when I saw Less Than Zero. Also, Sarah and I bounced up and down in our seats when we saw the preview for Every Little Step. It’s a documentary about A Chorus Line, Why does it have a less than 5 average rating on IMDB? It’s about A Chorus Line! How could it not be awesome? And, while it might wind up being a little precious, I am looking forward to Away We Go.

The original Chorus Line record sleeve. I listened to this over and over and over and over and over and over and over again through childhood and adolescence.

In the world of at-home-viewing, on my sickest sick day I had a mini Star Trek marathon thanks to Netflix’s watch it now feed on my TV, starting with season 1 which included Captain Kirk in red tights, and many a ripped shirt. We also watched a French movie—La moustache-–about a guy who goes koo-koo when he shaves his moustache and no one notices. Odd little movie, but interesting enough.

Go see Sunshine Cleaning. Favorite movie so far of 2009.

I think that very well sums up…well, a lot. The basic difficulty in relationships and connections and interactions, even with ousrelves. I mean even private journaling is limited, because once you become involved with words you fall short. It’s a basic problem of humanity, and a basic problem for writers. Words, the only tools we have, always betray the pure vision. It’s also interesting to think about in terms of blogs and social networking and how language can disguise us there. Merton goes on to say ”and yet without words we cannot find ourselves, without communication with men we do not know God.” Well, hell. It’s that old, fundamental tension again of both longing and fearing being known, and I find myself easily lost in that tug-of-war.

I finally saw Man on Wire. If you haven’t yet, you really need to. Though the 9/11 attacks are never mentioned in the movie, they are there. As you watch Philippe & co planning his high-wire walk between the twin towers, you can’t help but think about their ultimate fate, and the two opposite results of diligence and passion and precision, the stark contrast between beauty and destruction. It’s not just superheros who have to decide if they’re going to use their powers for good or for evil.

Jennifer Weiner on the Importance of male writers vs. the perception of “women’s fiction” and how that is changing. (Thanks, E. Lockhart, for the link.)

I saw Wendy and Lucy yesterday. It stressed me out. A lot. And then it just…ended. I don’t know. This one has gotten such good buzz and some awards, but it didn’t feel right to me somehow. I also saw He’s Just Not That Into You and it made me wonder about people. Is that an accurate portrayal of dating life? Man, am I glad to be happily married. Also it reminded me of my continued disappointment in Scarlett Johanss0n whom I adored in Manny & Lo and Lost in Translation. And then she became a starlet or something. Which I guess she has the right to do, but it seems like she could have gone more in the Catherine Keener career direction, if she wanted. On the upside, I finally saw Penelope and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think this all somehow relates to the Weiner article, maybe.

Are you going to TLA? That’s the Texas Library Association’s annual conference. I’m going and I’m very excited to be on a panel with John Green, Melissa Marr,  and Lisa Klein. The panel is described thusly: “Authors featured on Tayshas reading lists chat informally about writing for an older YA audience.” I love informal-chatting-panels! That will be on 4/1 at 10:15. Hope to see you there. And then on my whirlwind tour of Not Utah, I’m going to straight to Rochester for the Teen Book Fest (Live!), which looks to be about as much fun as a bunch of authors can have, legally,  and it’s free, and if you are in the area you should definitely come.

Thanks again for all your great responses to the last post. Have a great day!

I’ve been catching up on a backlog of movie watching/going lately. Lots of good stuff…

Milk: Made me homesick, mostly for a place and time that no longer exists. I remember 1978 in San Francisco pretty vividly, and my best friend’s dad had a business in the Castro and lived in the Haight. Sean Penn, who I don’t usually love, disappeared into the part.

Flash of Genius: Greg Kinnear is an obsessive inventor who comes up with the first working intermittent windshield wiper. Corporate assholery ensues. Lorelei Gilmore is longsuffering but not that longsuffering. Greg goes nuts, Alan Alda tries to help. Will patience pay off? Watch and find out!

Frozen River:  Two fierce women (like truly fierce, not like Sasha Fierce or Goddess of Fierce) who don’t get along each have something the other wants. Through a lot of lovely and sometimes scary layers, you find out how far they’re willing to go. Good example of how to use conflicting desires in storytelling.

Old Acquaintance: Speaking of fierce women. Bette Davis is a writer and lives out pretty much every writer’s nightmare. Her best friend is all, “Hey, maybe I’ll write a book!” and then becomes kind of the Danielle Steele of the 1930s. Claws come out, but friendship trumps and spinsters unite!

Peyton Place: Small town gossip, questionable morals, and personal secrets collide. Russ Tamblyn is totally cute and you can see the resemblance between he and Amber. We learn not to go swimming at the lake when Marion Partridge might be watching, and also that Doc Swain is a good guy to have on your side.

What have you seen and liked lately?

You know it better as Story of a Girl. Now, not only can you read it in English and French, you also read it in Vietnamese! Many thanks to Di Li, the translator of Sweethearts, for sending me the cover. I have to say that I really love this one. It keeps with the tradition of the English cover, but it also totally different and still captures the story. 

Saw Revolutionary Road last night. I don’t know. Leo was great, Kate was very good, but all in all the book is far better. Read it!

If you’re in Salt Lake, the Film Society is showing a slew of Oscar-related movies, so check that out.

Have a great weekend!