Okay, the guests are all gone, and I'm free to blog again. And free to spend all my time with Jules and Gabe and the wonderful Daisy.
Two book reviews:
- A Drop of the Hard Stuff, by Lawrence Block. Block has a gritty elegance, with cleanly authentic dialogue and a knowledge of the seedy. He writes pungently, vividly. The plot - about one of Block's most famous creations, PI Matthew Scudder, investigating the death of a recovering alcoholic shot after making amends to all those he had wronged during his drinking days - crackles for a while, but then loses some steam, with the discovery of the killer kind of random.
- Radioactive, Lauren Redniss. A compelling biography of Marie and Pierre Curie, most likely to be cherished and remembered for the audacity of its form. Done in the format of a graphic novel, the biography features arresting artwork on every page, which Redniss (who teaches at the Parsons School of Design in New York, all you Project Runway aficionados) has constructed using cyanotpe. The Prussian blue created by the ultraviolet rays hitting the negative and solution (ammonium iron citrate and potassium ferricyanide) give the pages a spectral, glowing look, apt for the subject matter. I flew right through it.
Okay, so we'll make today and tomorrow Poland Day, in honor of Marie Curie (heck, maybe next week, too). I knew a little about Solidarity, but the following article taught me more about this crucial period in Polish history, especially in regards to the country's relations with the Soviet Union:
http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1980solidarity&Year=1980
Tamara de Lempicka (1898-1980) was one of Poland's most famous, most glamorous Art Deco figures. A painter of luxurious, lush women, sexually satisfied and decadent, her art providing a good, reflective impression of the woman herself, a high society aristocrat who was perhaps a symbol of the new Polish woman - independent, chic, sexually unfettered. It was in Paris during the tail-end of the first World War and throughout the twenties and thirties that the born-to-wealth Lempicka made a name for herself, painting nobility, writers, entertainers, scientists, industrialists. Her life in Paris between the wars was marked by debauchery and bisexualism. She had a simple style, was very prolific, and was much in demand as a portrait artist, in Paris and during her time in the U.S. (Above: L'Echarpe Bleue, 1930)
So long, Showtime. You were good for two shows, the sixth season of Dexter, which gained its footing after a shaky start and was undeniably gripping by the end, and the wonderful Homeland, which featured three outstanding central performances: Claire Danes, Damian Lewis, and Mandy Patinkin.
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