Happy Bunny Day, all!
The Fischer fam had a nice time yesterday in Savannah. Today, we're relaxing at home, entertaining Gabriel, watching movies, reading, taking Daisy for a walk (though the neighborhood sure smells - someone's burning the hell out of some leaves), maybe flipping on some NBA action, and preparing one doozy of a feast.
(brief) Book Reviews:
Anne Tyler's Digging to America, from 2006, is an easy winner, not one of her best; but, really, is this author capable of writing a bad book? The story involves two Baltimore families - one American, one Iranian - who both adopt Korean girls in the late-90s. Over the ensuing years, the families, who initially get together annually for a party, become friends, their lives entwining with each other. I suppose a critic of Tyler's would say that her books are all the same, but not so, not so - and even if, well, they kind of are, all is forgiven when the writing is this nuanced and particular. You could spend years and years following a group of people around and not observe half as much as Tyler can observe about characters in a string of illuminating paragraphs. (***1/2)
Richard Condon's Cold War chestnut The Manchurian Candidate (1959) is still an exciting read, blackly funny, at times brilliantly written, but more than a bit dated, of course - those damned Commies! If you've seen either of the movies versions (the 1962 classic, with Sinatra and Angela Lansbury, or the dismal 2004 thriller, with Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep), you might only get a sense (more so in Lansbury's interpretation than Streep's by-then hopelessly caricatured part) of how monstrously hideous (and funny) the creation of Eleanor Shaw is - one of the great evil mommies in popular literature. (***1/2)
Susan Hill's compendious 1983 classic The Woman in Black, the inspiration for a long-running stage play in England, multiple BBC adaptations and a 2012 film with Daniel Radcliffe, is either the most cliched story of all time or the most bare-boned, cut-and-dry frightening, I'm not sure which. You keep thinking there's going to be more, but then you come to realize that in its own classic way, it's perfect, without need of trimmings. A young London solicitor (lawyer) travels to the east England marshes to settle the estate and papers of a client. And what a setting it is: A house set far back in the estuary, reachable only when the tide ebbs. The title woman haunts the grounds, and there are odd rocking noises coming from the nursery. At around 160 pages, the book certainly doesn't mince words and if it all seems a bit tame today (it reads like a movie you've seen times or so), the ending packs a sorrowful, fatalistic wallop. (***1/2)
- Everyone in music should age as well as Nick Lowe. While his 2011 CD, The Old Magic, isn't quite as memorable as 1994's outstanding The Impossible Bird or 2001's equally good The Convincer, it's a sheer pleasure. He's in that breezy, crooning mood, swaying and loungy, with songs that are easy, laid-back, poignantly-themed reflections on aging and hanging around. It's amazing, really, that Lowe sounds no different now than he did twenty years ago.
If you're late to the party, here are five essential Lowe tracks to start off what will probably be a lifelong reverence - and one from his days in the pop outfit Rockpile:
- "Cruel to Be Kind" (1979)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ogp-nyLGLIE
- "The Beast in Me" (1994)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x95qPJLr2Aw
- "Homewrecker" (2001)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIcHwosaoHE
- "She's Got Soul" (2001)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHhtgTjnqZw&feature=related
- "I Trained Her to Love Me" (2006)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcsiUvqzMa4
Rockpile: "Teacher, Teacher" (1980)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OKtuaWkmA0
(I apologize if any of these YouTube links don't work; if they don't, just sign up for a Nick Lowe station on Pandora and let the sounds of Lowe - and other "similar" artists (Dave Edmunds, Van Morrison, natch) - wash over you.
History lesson today:
In preparation for watching a movie I recorded this past weekend, Hunger, which I had been wanting to see for a while now, I felt like I should do a little background on the subject of the film - the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike.
I'll try to summarize this event as ably as I can. There were two strikes, really - one at the beginning of 1981, lasting 53 days, and one lasting from May 1 to October 1. Both of them took place within Long Kesh Prison (later known as HM Prison Maze) in occupied Northern Ireland during the endless Troubles (roughly the 1960s to 1998), that turbulent, violent period of ethno-political conflict - all resulting because of unrest over northern Ireland's constitutional status and, more so, by conflict between Protestant-Unionists and Catholic-Nationalists.
The Hunger Strike came about, first off, because Ireland, specifically the IRA, wanted to muscle Britain out of their country's politics. Ten prisoners, volunteers for the Irish Republican Army (IRA), were angered over their being placed in prison and being denied political status by Britain; under new British criminalization law, they were given no special privileges, treated as prisoners of war.
The prisoners made five demands:
- the right not to wear a prison uniform
- the right to free association with Republican political prisoners
- the right, as political prisoners, not to do prison work
- the right to organize their own educational and recreational facilities
- the right to one weekly visit, letter, and parcel
Their demands were denied. On March 1, the prisoners - most notably, Bobby Sands - began to refuse food. Over the ensuing months, ten died of starvation. Thirteen other men refused food at first, but later striking for other reasons - medical conditions, taken off the strike by their family, etc.
Throughout the strike, Margaret Thatcher remained resolute, refusing to give in to their demands.
Thanks:
http://www.irishfreedomcommittee.net/HISTORY/1981_long_kesh_hunger_strike.htm
http://irish-rebellions.wikispaces.com/8+-+The+Troubles+and+the+H-Block+Hunger+Strike
For those of you new to my blog, for the last month and a half or so, I've been going through the magazine Professional Photographer's list of the 100 Most Influential Photographers of All Time. Why? Well, I don't know much about famous photographers and I thought it would be fun and informative to learn about the more renowned artists in this field - and, of course, because it's always nice to have all sorts of pretty and weird and provocative images on my blog!
Today, we're up to # 22, Annie Leibovitz.
The Connecticut-born Leibovitz studied painting at the San Francisco Art Institute (while she took night classes for photography) and became chief photographer for Rolling Stone in 1973. After ten years, she left the magazine to be the first ever contributing photographer for Vanity Fair, where she has been ever since; she has been with Vogue since 1998, as well. She has contributed to countless ad campaigns and worked with many arts organizations. She has photographed so many of the important people and celebrities of our times, including controversial shoots of Demi Moore and, recently, Miley Cyrus.
Other facts about Leibovitz:
- Her first assignment for Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone? Shoot John Lennon.
- Her interest in photography came about after a trip to Japan with her mother during college.
- She was friends with Susan Sontag for fifteen years.
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| Demi Moore, 1991 |
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| Mick Jagger, 1975 |
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| the Obama family, 2010 |
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