Howdy, folks! It looks like it's going to be a fine, sunny Saturday down here in Georgia. Hope everyone has a nice weekend. We're leaving for the pool here soon.
I'm resolved to not talk about the Colorado shooting other than to say it is a despicable, horrific tragedy, a reason to never go to the movie theater again, and further, needless evidence that the gun-ownership laws in this country are way too lenient.
Julia and I found a great new cupcake place yesterday in Savannah, Gigi's Cupcakes, which, unbeknownst to us, is a chain. If there's one near you, check it out. Fantastic. I got my haircut too, which is always a slightly depressing experience, because it makes me aware how little hair I actually have!
Gigi's just might just have the best cupcakes I have ever tasted, really. I just wish we had one here in Statesboro, but that would mean one less Dollar General, I suppose, and that must be a no-no, because this town seem to take a peculiar pride in being the Dollar-Store capital of North America. Christ, they just keep coming!
Born today:
Louise Blanchard Bethune (1856-1913)
I had never heard of her before, but it turns out that she was the first professional female architect in the United States. Born in Waterloo, NY, Bethune graduated high school and then gave up her plans to study at Cornell for a job as a draftsman at an architectural office in Buffalo, where she would spend most of her working life. Five years later, she had her own office.
She would go on to design a wide variety of buildings: housing developments, a bank, schools, hotels, factories. A music store she designed was one of the nation's first structures that used steel frame and poured concrete slabs. In 1888, she was elected a member of the American Institute of Architects. She designed a modern lithography factory, police stations, and an armory, at least seventy-five buildings in all. She specialized in school buildings. Her style was Romanesque.
Only one of her public buildings still stands: Buffalo's Lafayette Hotel, on Lafayette Square, a Renaissance-style hotel built in 1904.
*
Book Review
Gone Girl
by Gillian Flynn
***1/2 (out of 5)
A talked-about bestseller since its release at the beginning of summer, Flynn's third novel has an irresistible, grabby premise: A thirtysomething NYC couple gets married and spend the first year or so in relative bliss. Nick, the husband, is a magazine writer, and Amy, the wife, is of inherited wealth; her parents are authors of a long-running series of bestselling young adult books detailing the life of Amazing Amy, a character loosely modeled on their daughter. When Nick and Amy lose their job and Nick's mother gets cancer, the couple is forced to re-locate to middle Missouri. Boredom and bickering sets in, and Nick starts spending more time with his sister than his wife. And then on the day of their fifth anniversary, Amy disappears. All signs point to a struggle, and the evidence begins to pile up against Nick, because it's always the husband, right?
The first half of the book is my favorite, a skillful, beautifully-written, savvy account of the interior life of a married couple. Flynn switches point-of-view each chapter, contrasting Nick's sense of panic and befuddlement (and odd indifference) with Amy's voice, revealed over five years of diaries leading up to her disappearance. In particular, I appreciated how Flynn's characters are smart and meta; Nick knows everything about the ensuing police investigation because he's seen so many movies and shows. What's real anymore? What's novel, capable of surprising us? Is it even possible for a generation raised on crime TV and movies to not be one step ahead of the cops?
The second half of the novel completely toys with our expectations. Nothing is what it seems. Everyone is lying. It was around the 200-250 page mark that I began to like the book less. I was still intrigued with the mystery, but I began to realize that I wasn't going to like how it was going to play out. Part of that has to do with the fact that Flynn gives us not one but two unreliable characters, Not only are the main characters not sturdy enough, not forthright enough to gain our trust, neither Nick or Amy is ever for a moment remotely likable; I got tired of them, their whining, their deceits. The third act isn't believable, but nevertheless I found myself thinking about the book for a while afterwards. It is certainly original and well-thought out and Flynn is a first-rate writer, an astute social commentator. I only wish I liked the story, and characters, a little bit more.
*
Movie Review
Friends With Kids (2012)
Directed by Jennifer Westfeldt
Starring: Jennifer Westfeldt, Adam Scott, Jon Hamm, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Chris O'Dowd, Megan Fox, Edward Burns
*** (out of 4)
A smart, well-written comedy in the vein of a late-1970s, mid-80s Woody Allen movie, Jennifer Westfeldt's directorial debut stars her and Adam Scott, in a terrific performance, as best friends from college who live in the same New York apartment. Both of them are in their 30s, bouncing from relationship to relationship, and soon enough Westfeldt's Julie finds that she is wanting kids. All her and Jason's (Scott) friends have kids: Ben and Missy (Jon Hamm and Kristen Wiig) seem both settled-in and frisky, and Alex and Leslie (Chris O'Dowd and Maya Rudolph) certainly appear to be harried yet happy.
Julie's plan is for Jason to impregnate her, and the two can then raise the child together, sharing custody, and still see other people. And it certainly seems to work out at first. Julie starts dating a recently-divorced hunk (Edward Burns), and Alex goes out with a flexible, limber, anti-child dancer (Megan Fox). Their friends, more worn and frazzled by parenting than they perhaps let on, don't understand how the couple manages it.
Of course, complications set in. You'll guess where it's going, undoubtedly, but the movie, if it doesn't ever really break any new ground, is full of good, fresh talk, and the characters are interesting enough to hold your attention. There's good insights too: Kids can either make or break a marriage. Scott's work is really good, and it's a treat to see a Bridesmaids cast reunion, though I wish Wiig had more, or something, to do; I was entertained by Fox's work as a hottie both more and less shallow than you might expect. By the end, Julie and Jason are fully-realized characters, and the final scene, both sad and encouraging, really delivers.
*
Today's entry in my 500 Greatest Performances of All Time?
Frances McDormand
as Jane in Laurel Canyon (2003)
Before she made the great The Kids Are Alright, writer-director Lisa Cholodenko gave us this fine indie about an uptight young man and his fiancee (Christian Bale and Kate Beckinsale - holla!) who move in to his mother's house in the title locale. As the mother, a libertine, free-spirited music producer who still smokes pot and sleeps with decades-younger members of bands whose albums she's producing, McDormand is a force of nature - sexy and lived-in and sharp-tongued, with smart eyes that take everything in. You don't want to think of what this woman has done in her prime with guys like Greg Allman and Robert Plant - it's best to not even ruminate on it. But there's something lovable and recognizable about McDormand's Jane too, even if it takes us the whole movie to figure out what it is. She's strong-willed and no-nonsense, and McDormand constantly shows us how aware and keen she is, taking what could be a caricature and giving her depth and perspective. She'd be a cool person to be around.
*
Today's painting? Well, because it's your birthday, Arshile Gorky, we dedicate July 21 to you!
The Artist and His Mother
1926-1936
oil on canvas
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Gorky was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. His family survived, but three years later, his mother died, and Arshile (falsely claiming he was the nephew of Russian writer Maxim Gorky) made it to Ellis Island, New York. He was an art teacher and avant-garde painter in New York City, closely associating with the Abstract Expressionists; he was friends with de Kooning, and Mark Rothko was one of his pupils. In 1948, he committed suicide.
In the painting, Gorky stands by his mother, who died of starvation in 1918, wanting but unable to get back to the family's home in the Lake Van region of eastern Turkey (Turkey decided to eradicate its minority Armenian residents in 1915). Gorky drapes her in a muslin-like material and her face has a stone-like, mask-ish quality, as if she is dead, and though little space separates the two, there is the impression of a great remove, distance. The boy too seems sad - deeply, ineffably pained.
Gorky's father went to America in 1908 to avoid conscription into the Turkish Army. Four years later, Arshile and his mother had a photograph taken of the two of them to send to his father. His father received the photograph and Arshile later found in his father's apartment in America. The above painting shows Gorky trying to re-imagine the photo. But nothing could ever be the same. His mother is gone, dead, and the window behind her, all brown, has no view, no window to anything.
Here is the original photograph:
Images:
http://rlv.zcache.com/bethune_louise_blanchard_postcard-p239514160768465983baanr_400.jpg
http://media.cleveland.com/ent_impact_arts/photo/11162684-large.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FuPVObV6VYA/T2Fj49UjODI/AAAAAAAAF5k/deIiSeYZ9zo/s1600/friends-with-kids110912073810.jpg
http://blog.winstonwachter.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/TheArtistAndHisMother_c1926_36.jpg
http://image.toutlecine.com/photos/l/a/u/laurel-canyon-2002-22-g.jpg
Information:
http://www.distinguishedwomen.com/biographies/bethunel.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2002/mar/30/art
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