Considerations...: Hello Teacher!

Word of the day : tonsorial : of or relating to a barber or the work of a barber

Well, it's Gabriel's first day of school today. We'll miss him - for the few hours he'll be there - but it will good for him and we know he'll learn a lot.

R.I.P. Gore Vidal: Here are some good quotes by him:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/01/gore-vidal-best-quotes?fb=optOut

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Book Review

This is the second novel by Jeffery Deaver that I've read and I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would - and much more than 2008's decent The Broken Window. The prolific Deaver is a fiendish, intelligent craftsman and he sets his sights on the music industry in this thriller about a country singer, Kayleigh Towne, daughter of a Bucks Owens-like figure, who is stalked relentlessly by an obsessed fan, Edwin Sharp. As bodies start to pile up in the days before Towne's concert in her hometown of Fresno, Special Agent Kathryn Dance (of the California Bureau of Investigation) must try to piece together the clues of whether or not the pesky, ubiquitous Edwin is indeed the mastermind behind all the terror. There are plenty of red herrings and multiple climaxes. Just when you think you have it all solved, Deaver disorients you once again. The plot isn't always plausible, relying a bit too much on no-way-he-could-be-in-that-many-places maneuverings, but I had a good time with it and flew through it, absorbed throughout. There are even extended cameos for longtime Deaver characters Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs. Deaver also wrote most of the lyrics to the songs that feature prominently in the story.
(****)

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ATM (2012) is pretty freakin' fiendish, too. It's a low-budget, confined thriller from first-time filmmaker David Brooks and screenwriter Chris Sparling (who wrote the stifling Buried, with Ryan Reynolds buried alive inside a coffin). After a late-night Christmas party, three office workers (Brian Geraghty, Alive Eve, and Josh Peck) stop off at an ATM and are harassed and taunted by a man in a parka who stands outside the building between them and their car. Any doubts about his intentions are quickly quelled when he kills a homeless man in the parking lot. The three have to think and act quickly, but matters intensify when the killer goes around the back of the building and turns off the heat, causing further below-zero discomfort for our protagonists. Though there are some obvious, gaping questions - starting with why in the world the workers parked a good fifty yards away from the ATM! - I thought the filmmakers did a nice job with the confined setting. The tension was ratcheted up pretty high and the movie didn't go on any longer than it needed to. If you can leave your logic on the seat next to you, you'll have a good time with this one. By the way, although the movie is, I think, supposed to be set in New York, it was clearly filmed elsewhere - in this case, Winnipeg.
(**1/2)

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And we continue with the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time:

Meryl Streep
as Lindy Chamberlain in A Cry in the Dark (1988)

"The dingo's got my baby!" This list's first of the endless proofs of Meryl Streep's ridiculous talents (though my rules stipulate that only four performances by any actor or actress can make the list), this real-life drama from director Fred Schepisi casts the actress as one of the most infamous, controversial figures in recent Australian history - Lindy Chamberlain, a mother living in the Northern Territory of Australia, who is camping with her family (husband Sam Neill, also terrific) in the Outback, near Ayers Rock, when (she claims) she sees a dingo carrying her baby away from their tent. As the public tide turns against her, we begin to shift our own views of Lindy too. She seems a bit too callous, aloof - surely she can't have sacrificed the baby? Thanks to Streep, however, the character is too mutli-faceted to be either black or white. She's fascinating - you like her and then you don't like her, you feel for her and then you question her. The actress' accent is, natch, characteristically masterful.

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It's been a few weeks, but I haven't forgot about how we were making our way through Professional Photographer's "100 Most Influential Photographers of All Time," I swear!

Today's photographer? Terry Richardson (#56)

A true original, Richardson (the son of a photographer) was born in New York City but raised in Hollywood. At Hollywood High School, he started shooting his environment immediately; he was also in a punk rock band. He's a controversial artist, often accused of lewd, inappropriate, and downright creepy behavior with his models. He has worked with big-name clients (Leonardo DiCaprio, Lindsey Lohan, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tom Ford) and shot campaigns for Gucci and Marc Jacobs (among others). Though his work is renowned for its sexuality, another characteristic of it is (when he's not inserting himself in his work) is the use of celebrities in banal, everyday settings.