East Nashville in the New York Times

This is a particularly irritating article. It's an embarrassing little thing, which, neither a music or a travel piece, displays an incredible laziness and ignorance as it purports to be both.

Here's the gist of it: old country is better than new country. Unless you're talking about alt. country or Americana. In which case, it's OK to like it. Also, smoky bars are cool.

Got that?

Good. Now, in case you want to call bullshit on it, and would like another voice to add to your chorus of support, R. Emmet Sweeney is with you all the way.

Madeleine L'Engle

When I came to New York four years ago, I brought only a handful of books with me. One was Pale Fire, one was Strunk and White's Elements of Style. And one was A Swiftly Tilting Planet. I still have that book, and I still consider it one of the most important in my library. So I had to stop and reflect when I heard that Madeleine L'Engle had passed away this week.

The love that Madeleine L'Engle's Wrinkle In Time series inspires in its readers is evident in the obituaries that surfaced for the 88-year-old writer. Her "childhood fables, religious meditations and fanciful science fiction transcended both genre and generation," writes Douglas Martin in the New York Times.

Slate's Meghan O'Rourke recalls how she was initially drawn into the Murrys' world, a world of "cocoa and fraternal telepathy, New England storms and Bunsen burners, a strange old lady paying a midnight call: This was an odd but intriguing world, entirely distinct. And it only got stranger and more distinct as the book went on." There is a magic to L'Engle's work that people never forget, so that the news of her passing wasn't something abstract -- it was more like the loss of a friend. You can sense a reverence in these obituaries, a real love for her books behind all the literary analysis and remarks (good versus evil, Einstein, the cosmos, religion, etc.) that are employed in an attempt to characterize her body of work. What I loved best about her books, besides her ability to create atmosphere, were the little phrases that stuck in your head long after a reading: "kything," "The Might-Have-Beens," "tesseract."

My personal favorite, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, was about the farandolae within the mitochondria, that is to say, about the small, seemingly inconsequential series of actions that can have a chain effect through the ages -- how a move in one direction or the other can change the course of history. The book examined a sort of biological butterfly effect, in which the future of the human race was dependent on the intermarriage and offspring of the two "right" tribes of people (just read it). Characters in the book stayed with me for a long time; a tragic and beautiful element of self-sacrifice in the heretofore written-off Mrs. O'Keefe, who knows far more than she appears to, resonated with me.

There was also something wonderful to me about reading the story of a grown-up Meg Murry, now married to her childhood friend Calvin O'Keefe. There's no reasonable explanation for why that element captivated me, since I was closer to Charles Wallace's age when I read it. I guess I just like the idea that maybe magic didn't disappear completely when you grew up.

But the loveliest thing of all was the connection Meg and Charles Wallace had -- a psychic connection that most siblings have to some degree or another. While we may not all be able literally to "kythe" with our siblings, most of us have created special universes with them, magical worlds created in basements and backyards, worlds only we knew, we named, and we understood. All children create universes of their own, and many, if not most, share them with siblings. I guess we all hope our childhood universes will continue to be magic, even now that we're grown up.

Guest Blogger Review: "The Other Boleyn Girl"

Here's a public service announcement from a fellow spinster, designed to save you from ever plucking this aberration from the book store shelves:

"The quote on the front cover is promising enough that it seems a fair buy for my upcoming book club [editor's note: never went] - a Liz Smith from Newsday claims she read the thing "in one delicious gulp." Seemed plausible and slightly tempting. Until 10 pages in, whereupon I decide Liz Smith is surely a pseudonym for a pre-adolescent girl from Yonkers and Newsday is possibly not as equivalent to the New Yorker as I had supposed.

Philippa Gregory's 'The Other Boleyn Girl: A Novel' (as opposed to what? A poem? An eggplant?) is a bodice-ripping gag-reflex dressed up in some clever graphic design as an eloquent exploration of an age of subtle political change, seismic geographical revelations, and a rift in theological thinking that would rip open the very fabric of western thought. Not to mention the beginning of shifts in consumerism, the arts, architecture, science and thinking on gender and sexuality. In short, a humanist cultural revolution that marked the change from medievalism to the early modern age is boiled down to such insightful passages as:

"He took me in his arms and said delightfully, promisingly: 'We have only a moment, my love: so this shall all be for you.' He would lie me on the bed, unlace my tight dress, caress my breasts, stroke my belly and pleasure me in every way he could think of until I cried out: 'Oh my love! You are the best, you are the best, you are the very, very best.'"

This from the age that brought us More's divinely satiric Utopia and Castiglione's floral dialogue in The Courtier, not to mention early English translations of The Bible and Erasmus' audacious wit. One starts to wonder if Gutenberg was in fact doing us all a service when he cooked up his idea of literacy for the masses. Fat lot of good that's done us, if we've gone from More to Gregory's much, much lesser body of work. (See what I did there? More to less. Get it?... Clearly, Erasmus would have hated my guts.)

Gregory's complete lack of characterization of the many people who needlessly clutter her book drains even the bodice-ripping scenes of any guilty pleasure. It's hard to suspend one's ever-diminishing disbelief when the main character voices-over make-out sessions with: "His tongue slid between my lips and stirred me. I wanted to eat him, I wanted to drink him, and then have him bear me down onto the holystoned boards of the deck and to have me, then and there, and never let me go." It makes one want to lace one's bodice right back up again and go join a nunnery. Shudder.

I won't even touch the larger issue of mistaken macro-history and revisionist feminism being lodged down the reader's throat. Tudor England was unfair to women! Men had the upper-hand! Daughters were subservient to their fathers! First wives get the shaft by upstart young tarts! Yawn. Tell me something we don't know - mainly, the complex social and economic currency of the female gender that still held a surprising amount of sway during this period.

Nonsense, says Gregory. Her main character (Anne Boleyn's sister Mary, natch) is a sassy girl ready to make her way in the unfair world: "For the first time ever I felt as if I had taken my life into my own hands and I could command my own destiny. For once I was obedient neither to uncle nor father nor king, but following my own desires. And I knew that my desire led me, inexorably, to the man I loved." You go, girl! Way to break free from paternalism.

And Gregory's claim in the subsequent 'Reading Group Guide' that she wrote the book so people could understand 'the deep poverty' of the sixteenth-century is truly bizarre, given the minimal number of characters not belonging to the royal inner circle. Those three or four 'poor people' that do poke their heads in for half a page are either mute or useless, adding nothing to either plot or theme.

I'm loathe to do this to you, dear reader, but I must also share Gregory's precious insight that "Margaret Atwood has written novels which have raised the standard of writing. Other writers, me among them, have raised the standards of research." Because she included a sort of bibliography at the back of the book, see? Pity the books date from the 1940s, 50s and 60s. The comparison with Atwood seems....somehow unholy, no?

I guess the 'delicious gulp' quote on the front should of warned me this was a Harlequin romance rather than an actual novel with depth, characterization and, well, plot.

Not to put too fine a point on it, my friends, but I think this reader would rather spit than swallow."

Thanks, fellow spinster & mystery guest blogger!

Rosemary's Baby

Sometimes when the moon is full and I'm in a certain mood, namely a monthly/cyclical mood if you know what I mean (oh, you do, you unloved, fruitless spinsters!) I crave rare steaks, and Rosemary's Baby.

This is one of my all-time favorite horror movies (the other is The Shining) for so many reasons: I love the look of it -- 1960s New York, The Dakota, the decor, the costumes -- I love Mia Farrow (I absolutely adore her hair) I love the subject matter -- a spinster is one step away from a witch, you know, plus I've aspired to be a witch ever since my dad took me to the Salem Witch Museum when I was six -- and I love the fact that I notice something new every time I watch it.

Inevitably, I have to give the film a feminist reading, because, well, it just deals with so much vis-a-vis the archetypes of the female that it's really hard to disentangle it all (and because for me being a female = being a feminist). I mean, besides the unpleasantness of birth, you've got the evil male medical establishment, class issues, religious grappling, male condescension (toward the female capacity for rational thought), "hysteria" and emotionally abusive husbands. So you've got the most stylish witchcraft/urban isolation/theological disillusionment movie in the world, the best haircut ever, and a whole grab-bag of feminist complaints! In other words, the most fun I've had all summer.

But seriously, there are few movies as metaphorically rich and genuinely horrifying as Rosemary's Baby, and I take fresh pleasure with every viewing.

It's also a great adaptation. I read the book when I was ten, but I remember it vividly (since it was riveting and traumatic, leaving me virtually scarred for life). I was far too young to be reading it, but no-one was around to witness me devour the borrowed copy of the red trade paperback with the green-edged pages that Nadia M. had stolen from her mother's basement. I read it in Puerto Vallarta, while my mother was out with a man-friend, and sister was, shall I say discreetly, sick with the shits. It was dark, it was hot, I was alone, I was frightened. It was delicious. I'm surprised no one took it away from me, tender young Catholic that I was, because I must have read it for the better part of a week. That's all I remember about that trip to Mexico, that and bumping my head so hard against the concrete of the pool that I was momentarily blind. The book forever left me with strange ideas, but when I look back I realize how much of it centers on Catholic intermarriages (I think -- remember, the pool). Rosemary had all the weight of guilt and iconography upon her, and she had defied her family by marrying a Protestant man, which is why none of her three sisters, two brothers, or sixteen nieces and nephews help her out at all -- this is more clear in the book than in the film. Anyway, it's wonderfully adapted for the screen, including Rosemary's dreams/nightmares/fantasies/visions.

One reviewer notes that Polanski keeps the film ambiguous enough to make the viewer wonder whether these things are actually happening or if they're in Rosemary's mind.
I thought it was pretty clear what was in her mind and what wasn't. (Guy shows that he hears the chanting, too, at first.) Part of the rage that I feel when I watch it comes from the way Guy tries to gaslight her, which makes it a much better, far creepier tale than if she really *were* hallucinating some or all of it.

Rosemary's whole thing is being talked down to and underestimated by everyone. She's deliberately kept in ignorance and fear, compounding her childlike dependence, and Guy constantly tells her what she does and does not think. When her friends give her some womanly advice, he calls them a bunch of not-very-bright bitches.

Here's a classic mental manipulation scene:

R: "I don't like it, it has an undertaste."
G; "There is no undertaste, you're crazy."
R; "I don't like it and I'm not going to eat it."
G: "Fine, don't eat it. There's always something wrong, isn't there."
Sigh. Rosemary eats it.

Oooohhhh!!!! If that kind of talk doesn't burn me up, nothing does!

So, for me, one of the pleasures of the film is watching Rosemary learn to think for and stand up for herself. I love how observant she is, and I love her smart and pert retorts when she finally does fight back. (My favorite: "Shut up! I don't hear you, you're in Dubrovnik.") The film ends on an ambiguous note, but I like to think she fixes their wagon good. I hope she runs away from all of them, and I hope she drops the baby on its head.

Just Your Standard Monkey Funeral Shot*

So I re-watched Sunset Blvd. the other day, and about fifteen minutes into it I felt the same frustration I'd felt the first time around. My first viewing took place during my Buster Keaton phase, and I watched the film because he was in it for like three seconds. I'd been watching a lot of silent films at the time and maybe that was the thing, because soon enough, Sunset Blvd.'s voice over started to really, really bother me. I just wanted William Holden to shut up. When he said, "Max wheeled in caviar and champagne" and there was a shot of him wheeling in caviar and champagne I was like, UGH!!! STOP!!! Stop reading a novel over this movie, dammit!

I mean, aside from that, it's great. Great story, awful, incredible, ghoulish, creepy story! Terrific cast, dear god (I love Gloria Swanson! Male and Female was awesome, and Sadie Thompson was bizarre -- and I want to see Manhandled!). Obviously, great inside-view Hollywood satire (one of the first, I am told, I wonder if that's true). The dialogue between Holden and Swanson is terrific (between Holden and that oatmeal girl Nancy Olsen, not so much, but intentionally so, I imagine). And yes, very innovative: the voice-over is a dead man. Neat. But they could have sliced a lot of the damn voice over and it wouldn't have been missed. No one needs to narrate the butler bringing in caviar. (Ah, Eric von Stroheim, you magnificent bastard ... )

Richard Corliss called Sunset Boulevard "the definitive Hollywood horror movie," noting that, "the story is narrated by a dead man who Norma Desmond first mistakes for an undertaker, while most of the film takes place "in an old, dark house that only opens its doors to the living dead." He compared Von Stroheim to The Phantom of the Opera, and Swanson to Dracula, drawing comparisons between Wilder's handling of the camera during her seduction of Holden to "the traditional directorial attitude taken towards Dracula's jugular seductions."

One funny thing I read online, which may or may not be true, is that apparently, during a preview screening of the film, actress Mae Murray, a contemporary of Swanson's, was taken aback by the actress's over-the-top performance, and commented "None of us floozies was that nuts." And apparently Mary Pickford got real quiet. I wonder my what my favorite floozy, Mabel Normand, would have said about it.

* This is apparently what Billy Wilder said he wanted from his cameraman during the monkey funeral scene.

Vintage re-releases out of print Ross MacDonald books

Good news for Lew Archer fans -- About half-a-dozen old titles will be made available on Vintage's Black Lizard label, including "The Ivory Grin," "Black Money," "The Way Some People Die," "The Instant Enemy" and "The Blue Hammer."

Scott Timberg's article in the LA Times gives a nice overview of the author and his work:

Macdonald's following ranged well beyond noir's usual suspects: Eudora Welty gave 1971's "The Underground Man" a rave on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, then quite rare for a genre book. During his lifetime, he was friends with poet Henri Coulette and rocker Warren Zevon, and more recently authors Haruki Marukami, Jonathan Lethem and Chabon have hailed his influence.

"Ross Macdonald is the paradigm, to me, of a writer who never wrote outside the so-called 'confines' of his genre yet who expanded those boundaries so far in terms of language, characterization and literary patterning that it makes no sense to talk of confines at all," Chabon wrote in an e-mail. "He just wrote great novels about a private eye."

According to the article there's also a great anthology called "The Archer Files" by Tom Nolan, which features short unfinished sketches in which Archer appears. It might take a while for me to get around to that though -- I've had a copy of The Blue Hammer on my desk for five months, and I just bought a (used) copy of The Ivory Grin.

Here's hoping the new imprints keep the trashy vintage covers. Nope. I've just looked on Amazon and they've rather unfortunately classed them up too much for my liking:
Pity. I do so enjoy a horrible looking cover:

"Behind the Veil"

"Do women kill for different reasons than men?"

This was one of the topics discussed at a panel I attended recently, "Women Mystery Writers: Behind the Veil," at the New York Public Library. The panelists were Mary Jane Clark, Liz Zelvin, Mary Ann Kelly and Robin Hathaway. Truthfully, I haven't read any of them, but Kelly and Clark piqued my interest because they set their stories in Queens (yay!) and among the newsworld of a fictionalized CBS (and I'm such a media maven).

The panel was meant to discuss the intricacies of writing female characters, on both sides of the law, but it was a strangely stifled debate. Jane Cleland moderated, and she was lively and affable, but mis-stepped dreadfully right off the bat when she opened with the following question: "Are you a feminist?" There was a moment of awkward silence before two panelists answered yes and two answered no (a pretty representative proportion of feminists to non-feminists among women). I won't say who answered which way, to protect identities, but even those who said they weren't qualified their stance by adding that they just weren't fond of labels or "-isms" although they believed in the principles of feminism itself. For some, it was a non-issue ("women just assume they're equal"), for others remnants of old-school anti-feminism seemed to cling steadfastly in their psyches ("I don't like women who stomp around with 'metal things on their shoes' and [are] very aggressive and hate men," said one, laughably). Most of the panelists acknowledged the "subtle objectification of women in pre-feminist novels and mysteries," noting the long legs and good looks of the traditional femmes fatales, and all acknowledged the greatness of the new crop of female PIs like Kinsey Milhone and VI Warshawksi (to which I'll add Arly Hanks and Claire Malloy!). Clark summed the issue up nicely: "I certainly don't think that the purpose of women is to serve and support men."

End of discussion. And unfortunately, end of panel discussion.

The rest of the session was extremely muted, and nobody seemed willing to offer any opinions on crafting female characters, villain or detective, or holding forth on the differences between male and female murder/crime-solving styles. When asked, "Do women kill for different reasons than men," lame, non-committal responses ensued: "I don't know if motive is gender-specific" and "This business of gender is overdone a great deal." Now that everyone was enmeshed in a fine net of political correctness and fear, no one was willing to go out on a limb. No one wanted to talk about sex or power or revenge or lust or hatred or frustration or stereotypes or strong women characters or things they loved or hated -- no one seemed to want to say anything at all.

I was a little surprised that, on a panel about female characterization, nobody talked about -- or asked -- who their female characters were, or got into any specific writing techniques. I blame it all on the awkwardness ensured by the divisive opening question. Had I moderated, I might have asked that question last.

In any case, another surprise was that these authors didn't seem to be very avid readers. With the exception of Kelly, they didn't seem to read many novels at all. Kelly cited Jean Rhys (yes!), Iris Murdoch and Margaret Drabble, making her head and shoulders the most literary of the bunch. Hathaway went in for the classic British and golden age mysteries (Sayers, Tey), as well as Highsmith. And Clark confessed to reading very little at all as an adult, but professed to love Nancy Drew as a child (which put her in my good books, as did her statement that she "wrote visually" with little description, and was inspired by Hitchcock). Almost none read contemporary crime fiction!

(Which lead me to an interesting stream-of-consciousness debate in my own mind about the relationship between reading and writing. Of course, I didn't ask any questions at the Q&A, because I'm far too shy.)

I'll probably give Clark and Kelly a whirl sometime ... I'll let you know what I think!

Inoffensive Wimsey

This may be a testament to the staggering lengths of time it takes for me to get around to stuff: I just recently finished the DL Sayers novel my sister gave me for Christmas. It had been sitting on my shelf for lo these many months, and I finally cracked it open this summer.

Shame, because it would have been a really good and Christmasy read, and it suffered, I think, for having been read in July.


However ... we must be brave and carry on.

The idea of reading The Nine Tailors was exciting to me because Sayers is one of these canonical authors I've wanted to read for ages, so I was really looking forward to this Golden Age mystery (even though I've been disappointed by this branch of the genre in the past ... but this was Sayers after all, I reasoned, not The Crime at Black Dudley).

The novel itself was less than exciting, initially, and I was prepared to write off all English Golden Age mysteries indefinitely. The first fifty pages were just interminable description of village life quaintness, bell-ringing vicars, and English countryfolk. Then as a mystery began (slowly) to unfold, I started to feel a little better. Granted, it was the tamest mystery of all time (a stolen emerald necklace, yawn) but then finally, FINALLY, they FOUND a CORPSE! Thank god.

Things really picked up after the inquest. Villagers began to gossip and accuse, and act downright suspicious, mysterious papers found on the corpse take Lord Peter Wimsey (our gentleman detective) to France, and the corpse's true identity emerges, but they still can't figure out how he died. The answer can only be found by listening to the mysterious bells!

All in all it was a decent story, with some hilarious asides (like a two-page rant about how the French have terrible handwriting) and Wimsey was an amusing character with a dry, self-deprecating sense of humor but I can see how this novel would be neither universally loved nor universally reviled. I get the feeling that those who like this type of writing like it a lot, those who don't will simply feel bored and restless. I can appreciate certain qualities in her story but not in her method of story-telling (awfully long and dry and descriptive and sprawling -- I'd have found this story marvelous if she'd lopped off about 100 ages of description) or in her language (stiff!) or in her themes (rather mild for my taste). I won't rush out to read more Sayers the way I did with Tey after the Franchise Affair, or Rendell after No Night Is Too Long. I feel coolly toward Sayers, rather like I do with PD James.

I'll leave you with Edmund Wilson's criticism: "I set out to read The Nine Tailors in the hope of tasting some novel excitement, and I declare that it seems to me one of the dullest books I have ever encountered in any field. The first part is all about bell-ringing as it is practised in English churches and contains a lot of information of the kind that you might expect to find in an encyclopedia article on campanology. I skipped a good deal of this, and found myself skipping, also, a large section of the conversations between conventional English village characters.... I had often heard people say that Dorothy Sayers wrote well... but, really, she does not write very well: it is simply that she is more consciously literary than most of the other detective-story writers and that she thus attracts attention in a field which is mostly on a sub-literary level."

So there. Ladies, you can feel comfortable giving this book to your Nana; she won't be offended by any of it, and she'll learn a lot about bells.

Black Orchid Bookshop is Closing

I found out that Black Orchid bookshop is closing in September.

Of course I'm terribly sad because I loved that store (it was such a sublime shambles), and I bought my first Maggody book there (yay!), and Bonnie and Joe, well, they're just exactly the way you want bookstore-owners to be.

When I Googled the news for more info, I found this delightful blog, which eases the pain somewhat because it's so marvelous. (I also found out, while perusing said delightful blog, that Murder Ink had closed, which is also sad because I always said I'd go there and then I never did. That's what you get for putting things off.) I'll absolutely be visiting her blog again soon.

Though good blogs ease the pain, it's still sad to know that Black Orchid is gone forever (though apparently they'll live on in the ether of the interweb) .... but what I really, really want to know is who's going to get their Lizzie Borden cross-stitch?

Porter Wagoner with The White Stripes

I saw the Wagonmaster again last night! He opened for the White Stripes at Madison Square Garden, and he was supreme. He played with Marty Stuart, who produced his last album, I hear, and he sang such greats as "I've Enjoyed As Much Of This As I Can Stand" and "Cold Hard Facts of Life" (which is an incredibly funny and dark song) and it was such a treat because he played a much longer set than he did at the Opry (where I went with a handsome stranger and fellow fan). I thoroughly enjoyed it and was really excited to see the other country fans in the audience who loved it, too.

Nick Cave's outfit, Grinderman, followed, and they're thoroughly nuts. Their songs "Depth Charge Ethel" and "No Pussy Blues" are riotous.

The White Stripes were great too -- Jack White is so mannerly -- and they played "Little Ghost," which I love, and Jack saluted Porter as "the best dressed man in country music"
and talked about how privileged we were to have him with us that night. It's so pleasurable to see a nice young man who knows about The Music.

Oh, and Porter Wagoner's on Letterman tonight ... I'll be watching. Am I turning into a Wagonhead?

An Unkindness of Ravens

I finished Ruth Rendell's thirteenth mystery today, and found it to be a bit ... silly. I generally love the Inspector Wexford books but was a bit let down by this one. It was so over-the-top in some parts, and utterly simplistic in others, that I sometimes felt I was re-reading one of the lurid pulpy horror paperbacks that so interested me as a young teenager, it was that juicy and salacious. At times I couldn't take it seriously at all and wondered if she was just having fun. Like, "Oh fuck it, let's just throw a secret marriage in there."

Which, in itself, can be kind of fun.

Of course, Rendell knows how to keep the pages turning, but it felt like she really struggled with this one. There were even self-conscious admissions that the story was flagging ("Chandler says when you don't know what to do, have a man walk into the room with a gun") and she'd throw in new elements here and there until it finally felt like she was just heaping soapy absurdities on in an effort to distract the reader from the lack of story.

The most inane elements included Burden's wife moping over the fact that their unborn baby was a girl, a group of militant teenage feminists (man-killers, all!) and a little incest subplot that of course turned out to be a lie (because everyone lies about being raped!) and strange asides about feminism and femininity ( two wives each representing opposite poles of the monster that is Woman, from the simpering twit to the sexless hag) until a reader gets to wondering what Rendell's trying to say about feminism here. She must be making fun of anti-feminism. Radical feminists who stab unwary men? Funny joke, yes? She even threw a lesbian gym teacher in there! She has to be taking the piss. Dry British humor, yes?

Luckily Rendell's a smart technician, so I could ignore the distressing subtext and let the story play out in all its campy goodness. Plotwise, you've got what seems to be an ordinary wandering-husband job, that later turns out to be an elaborate set-up and murder. Add to the mix a fun secret wife and kid (ooh, bigamy!), and two sets of plotting, scheming women (the sets of mothers and daughters) and you've got plenty of motives for revenge.

Only Wexford comes off as a bit of a dullard in this one, and spends way too much time looking for a suspicious typewriter (to find out who typed the victim's resignation letter) and on other false, niggling leads, when anyone could see it was the mothers and daughters who did it.

This was by far the most transparent Wexford mystery I've yet read; very, very thin and rather disappointing over all. And bizarre. Just want to add that yet again. Thoroughly bizarre. I'll never understand what Rendell thought she was doing with that feminist group, other than finding a cool thing to do with the collective noun for ravens.

So what makes a gal keep on reading a bad book? Knowing it's going to turn out badly, maybe she waits in vain to see if it'll get better. (More likely Rendell is just good at turning the screws when needed.) Or, maybe one can thoroughly enjoy a rotten book, because criticizing is fun and it's definitely exciting to see what new stupidity the author will think of next (plus it's always fun to speculate if she's joking or not). It's definitely not a well-written novel, stuffed with absurd cliches and literary pretension (Wexford attends a play about incest, The Cenci, just before discovering incest figures in his own mystery; numerous allusions to detective stories, plot devices and criticism pepper the text, leading one to presume that Rendell spent wads of time staring at her bookcase while writing this, hoping to paste something together; Wexford quotes constantly, irritatingly) and the final explanation is both psychologically pat and vaguely insulting (fake rape accusations are always a deal-breaker for me, as I view them as not only the most irritating of plot devices but they also make me extremely uncomfortable and generally icky-all-over) AND, finally, there was just a little too much coincidence for my taste (the second wife just happens to be dating the typewriter-repair man?).

Much of the pleasure in mystery-reading comes from characterization as much as plot, and the creepy half-sisters were pretty compelling, as were the monstrous wives, though I'd liked to have known more about them, particularly the perpetrator. Maybe, once she realized it wasn't very good, Rendell piled on the scandalous elements, knowing full well it was silly, but still striving to keep the reader mildly entertained. The only really satisfying twist came at the end of the story, because the motive for the murder was a little different than the obvious (revenge). It was actually quite pragmatic, and a rather sad commentary on the state of women's education and financial dependence on men -- so maybe she did make her point after all.

Spinster Travelogue II: Nashville, Tennessee*

Well, fellow spinsters, I've returned from the not-so-deep South an older and wiser woman.

First off, I learned the real difference between whiskey and bourbon. Whiskey involves a charcoal mellowing process; bourbon puts the distilled liquor right into oak barrels, no charcoal. Distillers of the respective liquors will each lay claim to theirs being a superior process. I find each to be delightful. But of course you know where my loyalties lie (cf. name of website). But, if I do happen to indulge in a nip of whiskey, my brand of choice will be George Dickel whiskey. Why? Because I enjoyed the tour of their distillery, even if the waterfall pictured in their brochure turned out to be nothing but a creek.

It was still pretty though ...



The tour guide was a total sweetheart ("Every time I go into a bar ... not that I go into bars ... seems every time I do, someone wants to beat me up ... must be something about me ...") and I learned a lot of useful information about what happens to you if you drink moonshine (the iron content in the water will give you heavy metal poisoning) and that anywhere you distill corn liquor yourself, you're going to get a black mold that grows on everything, which is why you have to move your moonshine still from time to time. (Black tree trunks = dead giveaway.) I also learned that Merle Haggard drinks Dickel #8, which they don't make anymore. Take that, Jack Daniels.

Incidentally, Lynchburg is a really scary company town entirely owned and operated by the Jack Daniels' corporation, and the entire county's on the payroll. It's strange, and I wouldn't be fooled by their ads in which they claim to live in a sleepy, old fashioned town, because it's slicker than a New York City lawyer in a rainstorm. I and my gentleman friend had "lunch" in Lynchburg (at 11:00 in the morning; everything in Tennessee opens and closes absurdly early) at a little place called Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House.

It was a great lunch (featuring the best fried chicken I ate in Tennessee, great candied apples, crispy fried okra, tasty turnip greens, which I thought were called "collard greens" but maybe they're not, and an unfortunately disappointing pie called "chess pie" which I'd skip if I were you) but the Stepford-y vibe I got from the hostess was kind of freaky.

So if you find yourself in Lynchburg, skip town immediately and head to Tullahoma, where you'll find the much more satisfying Dickel Distillery.

Nashville itself is full of old people. It's great.

I particularly enjoyed touring the Ryman Auditorium, aka the Mother Church of Country Music, where I imagined Patsy Cline up on stage (though they were setting up for, um, Tesla) and snapped pics of Loretta Lynn's sequined evening costumes.
The Ryman housed the Grand Ole Opry back in the day, but later the show was moved to its new location in, well, "Opryland." Yeah, I have a little bit of disdain for the glitzy, mall-like new opry. I guess I like doing things the old way better.

But I saw Porter Wagoner at the new opry, which is awesome.

The Country Music Hall of Fame is a no-brainer; you have to go there if you're in Nashville. It's a beautifully designed museum, obviously curated with care and love. I saw John Loudermilk speak there, and he favored us with a few songs, some hilarious anecdotes and words of wisdom/advice ("You have to reach through the veil"). I love that man.

Other venues of musical goodness included The Station Inn, The Bluebird Cafe, Robert's Western World, and Tootsie's Orchid Lounge.


Foodly goodness was obtained in the form of biscuits at The Loveless Cafe, and pancakes at the Pancake Pantry. I was so enraptured with the vittles that I couldn't even snap a photo. But trust me, they were damn good. The pancakes at the pantry were divine. They were -- sigh -- much much better than mine. My god they were good. I wish I was eating their apple cinnamon pancakes right now. The Elliston Soda Shop was also a good old fashioned meat-and-three lunch counter, but don't go overboard with nostalgia and get a chocolate malted because they sound cool -- stick with the shake.

Also: I rode a riverboat:

*For Spinster Travelogue The First, click thusly and scroll down.

Nostalgia is overrated

Since I'm already breaking promises, I just want to post one more teensy little rant before I go on vacation.

I re-read THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH last night and, man, what a preachy book! I remember loving this as a kid, and I still think the movie would hold up if I could get it on DVD, but the book's just so pointed and moralistic, frankly I'm surprised that kids ate it up the way they did. It's so message-y: Don't waste time, don't misuse the English language, listen only to beautiful music (Beethoven, presumably) and not that "awful din" blah blah blah. It's so ennervating! Shut up!

The only things I still liked were marketplace and banquet in Dictionopolis, Tock and the Humbug, and when Milo conducts the sunrise (finally, some spirit, you little milquetoast! No wonder you're so boring!) ... and I have to admit I still kind of like the princesses, Sweet Rhyme and Pure Reason, because they have kind of cool names. But the "Mountains of Ignorance"? Honestly, we get it, learning is fun, now bugger off. This book is just so well-intentioned it gives me a headache.

Also, I had a very disappointing ice cream last night: Ben and Jerry's S'mores. I thought it was weird that they had it in the freezer at my local deli, since the flavour is officially in their flavour graveyard, but there it was. Reading the description, it seemed exactly like their Marsha Marsha Marshmallow, which I tried about a year and a half ago and was really disappointed with. So why buy an ice cream that already disappointed you once? Well, I figured maybe they retooled it and it would be better this time. Last time, the graham cracker swirl was this really gritty, flavourless mess, almost like someone accidentally got sand in my chocolate ice cream. And the marshmallow was forgettable.

This time they improved the graham cracker's texture slightly, making for something that was discernible as cookie-like chunks. But the marshmallow was barely noticeable again -- I like to see my marshmallow. Here is was just a swirl of light brown goo that was hard to tell apart, visually speaking, from the graham cracker. I didn't realize I was eating it at first. I was expecting marshmallow chunks, dammit. Utterly disappointing, and I don't know why they changed the name -- maybe just to retool the flavour without dredging up bad old memories -- but anyway, I don't recommend it at all.

So I guess the lesson here is that some things are worse than you remember them and some things are just as bad as you remember them, but everything is awful.

Nancy Drew

So I saw Nancy Drew this weekend (okay, opening night) and I had to break my "no posts till after Nashville" promise I made in my last post, cause it was just that good. There are certain critics and fans who did get all up in arms about the movie not being exactly like the book, which I consider a totally invalid criticism for an adaptation anyway -- it's a different medium, people -- but I have to admit I was mad at first because Emma Roberts has plain old brown hair, not titian hair and everyone knows Nancy has titian hair, goddam it. But then I managed to wrap my head around the fact that it's a new interpretation, and Nancy hasn't been around for almost eighty years by not keeping up with the times. The addition of sidekick Corky was a little weird, and I was kind of annoyed that Bess and George weren't in it at all -- then again, they weren't in some of the really early ones either -- but I got over it (the kid is pretty funny, actually). I recently re-read the Hidden Staircase, and Bess and George were nowhere to be seen.

At first I found the whole Hollywood slant is different, and somewhat inexplicable. I mean, why set it in Hollywood and not River Heights? So there are strange artistic choices that might disconcert a fan initially, but then once you think about it in terms of Nancy's revolution, it makes sense. If you're updating Nancy, what else would you do but bring her into a different mileu, a strange and modern one? It makes sense, and I think the idea of living in a haunted mansion with an old Hollywood mystery is a really fun idea. There's a crazy old butler/groundskeeper who's utterly devoted to the ghostly resident, giving it all a Sunset Blvd. kind of vibe.

Evolution, people.

Still, an adaptation should try to retain certain elements that made people love the book in the first place, and the film succeeded on this level, too. In this case, the writers managed to capture what I think the essence of Nancy would be -- not only the fearlessness for which she is known -- but also a certain earnest dorkiness that she exudes even in the books. Nancy really is genuine and sincere and kind of dweeby -- I mean, she's not tough or bad or slick or rebellious; she's earnest and a daddy's girl, and never gives it up to Ned (I mean, Nickerson keeps his knickers on, honestly) so I think it was they really pulled it off.

I actually ended up liking Emma Roberts' performance a lot more than I thought I would. There are some really cute line that she delivers in a high-pitched deadpan, and she manages to be such a smart, high-achieving kid you can't help but like her. It's a fun movie and I think the writers did right by Nancy and purists who complain about putting a little pop culture in their good old Nancy need to relax. After all, she's probably resistant to it anyway. I love how her father just wants her to be a normal teenager, and she can't quite get that going on. It's delightful to anyone who grew up nerdy -- that would be me, and, well, most everyone I know -- and I cannot express the sheer joy of watching Nancy trying not to sleuth and doing things like posing Ned and her friend as revolutionary war heroes for her oil painting. When her father asks her what she's doing she cheerily replies, "Just normal teenage things!" Trust me, this will resonate with you if you were every an sincerely nerdy teenager.

This movie gets total Spinster approval. We should all take our nieces to see this.

Oh my, is it June already?

Do you ever find yourself standing in the kitchen washing dishes and thinking about Charles Coburn?
I just think he's cute is all. I love that monocle. I loved him as Piggy in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and I loved his role in The Lady Eve. I love the fact that he didn't start acting until he was sixty. And then I remembered -- because I did actually know this at some point -- that he was born in June and I had to look it up and there it was: June 19th.

Aside from the great feeling I get from being right about stuff, I also happily remembered a bunch of other people I love are also born in June, folks like Rosalind Russell (June 4) and Hugh Laurie (June 11). Incidentally, Marilyn Monroe (June 1) and Jane Russell (June 21) were also born in June, meaning basically the whole principal cast of GPB (on my top ten list of my favorite movies ever).

I notice this blog has degenerated into a list of people I like who happen to have birthdays. I'm not sure why that it. Maybe it's just because every once in a while I stop drinking long enough to figure out what day it is.

I wouldn't expect more posts for a little while, since I'm going to Tennessee for a bit. There's some distilleries I need to visit. Look for a spinster travelogue when I get back.

Belated Birthday Greetings

It's still May, so I can still post this, even though it's a touch late: I'd like to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Katharine Hepburn's birth:


(May 12, 1907)

and send birthday wishes to Bea Arthur:


(May 13, 1922)

Two strong ladies beloved by spinsters everywhere, spinsters who will no doubt all end up living together in a big house in Florida and watching Golden Girls reruns and The Philadelphia Story over and over again on DVD.

I found this shot of the Golden Girls house on the website of someone even crazier than I am:


Join me on the lanai, won't you?

Whips, Panthers, and The Girl Hunt Ballet

If you’re too cranky and/or pasty for the beach, I recommend staying inside and watching movies all summer. This spinster got off to a good start by spending most of Memorial Day weekend indoors in the dark where she belongs.

On Sunday I caught “The Band Wagon,” a 1953 musical starring Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire. Normally I’m not one for musicals, but I have a soft spot for Vicente Minnelli because I was obsessed with “Meet Me In St. Louis” when I was a kid. (It’s a pastel Easter egg if a film, so see it if you can. Plus it’s got Judy Garland.) So I gave it a shot, and found it ridiculously delightful.

It’s one of those movies that makes you want to go to Sardi’s or 21 or The Stork Club, and drink martinis and say witty things. It’s got everything: old school Broadway mystique, fabulous dancing, in-jokes about hypochondriac writers and egomaniacal theatre directors, upstart prima donnas and washed-up showbiz legends.

Naturally there are truly memorable songs: “That’s Entertainment,” is a catchy tune about erasing the distinctions between highbrow and popular art, and the “Triplets” song is an insane number in which triplet babies – played by adults on their knees – fantasize about offing their siblings. The plot, if you need one, involves a washed-up tails-and-top hat dancer being forced to work with a snotty ballerina in a production that goes horribly awry under the direction of a high-minded and heavy-handed helmer.



But the best thing of all – and this sequence alone makes it worth your time – one of the numbers in the play-within-a-play is a murder mystery musical in which Cyd Charisse play the femmes fatales: The Blond and The Brunette.


It’s incredible. “She came at me in sections,” Fred says, aping tough-guy speak, “with more curves than a scenic railway.” It’s delightfully staged, and there’s a great shoot-out scene in a mannequin warehouse. This sequence gets high marks for stylizing the tropes of the genre in The Girl Hunt ballet, and for its great Sam Spadish voice-over. Hilarious, and nuts. See it if you’re feeling fizzy. It’s terribly fun.



Since some girls can’t get enough, I had to rush over to another rep theatre and catch Barbara Stanwyck in Forty Guns. I love everything I’ve ever seen her in, from weepie Stella Dallas to insane pre-code amorality fable “Ball of Fire.” I just love her, period.


Forty Guns is a hell of good time. She plays a land baron(ess) with a group of forty men who she bosses around and who do her bidding, among them the sheriff. Half these guys are in love with her; one hangs himself when she won’t have him. She orders them around and threatens them with her whip, and basically buys and sells them. She’s basically the greatest hero of all time. Of course there has to be man in town who can tame her, but I won’t spoil it by telling you that part.

I always enjoy seeing Barbara Stanwyck because she’s not pretty-pretty. She’s hot, and not at all to be trifled with, and not at all kittenish, and in Forty Guns she actually looks like a grown-up woman, old enough to command respect, dammit. But she’s great at showing you a soft heart hiding inside all that, and that’s why we love her, don’t we.

See Forty Guns for her, and for the thrilling pre-code innuendo (gun stroking, admiring) and for the “High Riding Woman With A Whip” song. I’d see it for the opening scene alone, where she shakes up the dust on the plains on her white horse with the band of men in her employ.

In other news, I also watched Track of the Cat on DVD. It’s a pretty underrated movie which is a shame since it’s visually stunning (filmed in color but using almost entirely black and white set pieces, costumes, etc., a dazzling snowy panorama, mountains, swirling snow) with a claustrophobic family drama at its core. Plus, it’s got Robert Mitchum, being mean and creepy yet oddly handsome.

Especially noteworthy: Grace, the spinster sister, gets plenty of screen time, and you can feel the fire in her belly and the pain her soul. Inevitable, if you end up a shut-in with your smothering family, I suppose. There’s a great moment when the whisky-guzzling patriarch starts yelling at his frigid, unattractive wife, calling her “a clothespin.” Then he turns to his spinster daughter and yells it at her too. “You're both a coupla clothespins!”

A Good Spinster Is Also A Good Hostess

Here's a tip: When friends stay for breakfast or brunch, serve them buckwheat-blueberry pancakes!

I sprinkled these with cinnamon, drizzled 'em with pure Canadian maple syrup, and tossed a handful of blueberries on 'em for good measure. Serve with your desired breakfast meat if you have one, and a good strong cup of coffee, and watch your friends and loved ones swoon.

These hearty pancakes work especially well if you happen to live in a cabin in the Maine woods or something, but they'll do just fine if you live in Queens, too.

Waitress

"Waitress" was a movie I was somewhat interested in but hadn't heard too much about and wasn't exactly going to line up to see. But then a friend emailed me a description of it and I stopped short when I realized: it's about pie. My god. And then I simply had to see it.

I was expecting a movie made by a woman who appreciates the deliciousness of pie to be quite an event, and I wasn't disappointed. In fact (and this is the highest compliment I can pay) it reminds me a movie that I might make, if I ever stopped eating pie long enough to make a movie.

It's a sweet film (naturally), simple in its intent and execution, funny and warm. Keri Russell plays a waitress who wants to get out of a crummy marriage but can't quite save up enough cash to run, and to top it all off she's knock up. Quite a pickle. Will she ever leave her nasty husband, win the pie contest and open her own shop? Only time – say, nine month's worth – will tell.

This movie is a love note to friendship, diners, and daughters, but it's not smarmy at all. Jenna (Russell) freely admits to resenting her baby (she calls it "an alien and a parasite" and names a pie after it, the "Bad Baby" pie, and writes it mean little letters in her head about it's stupid crib and what a pain it is), people indulge light-heartedly in guilt-free extra-marital dalliances and otherwise comport themselves badly. Jenna's husband (Jeremy Sisto) is a silly, macho man-child, who we laugh at even as we're afraid of him. The acting was great all around, especially from Russell who really surprised me with her comedic touch, and Cheryl Hines, who was just completely nuts and over the top and wonderful as the tough-yet-tender-hearted, loyal, slutty friend that every girl wants.

Sweet, sad and pretty darn lovely, "Waitress" warmed this heart of mine.
XO,
La Tante Spinster

The last mosquito that bit me had to book into the Betty Ford Clinic.

It's Joanna Lumley's birthday today! AbFab's Patsy is one of my all-time favorite TV spinsters; I will never get tired of your champagne-swilling, pill popping ways, darling. You do us proud and are an inspiration to glamorous spinsters everywhere.

Here are some heart-warming quotes:
Eddie: [to Saffy] Oh, darling, Mummy loves you. On the day you were born I *knew* I wanted you...
Patsy: However, the day after...


Patsy: What will you drink if you stop drinking?
Eddie: I shall drink water.
[pause]
Eddie: It's a mixer, Pats. We have it with whiskey... I mean, YOU've given up drinking before.
Patsy: Worst eight hours of my life.


Patsy: Darling, you are a fabulous, wonderful individual, and remember, I've known you longer than your daughter has.

Happy birthday, sweetie darling.

The Zebra-Striped Hearse

I just this minute finished Ross Macdonald's "The Zebra-Striped Hearse," a book that made me want to hide under my desk at work, George Costanza style, so I could finish it, that's how gripping it was. Macdonald's one of the big three kahunas of the hardboiled detective novel -- along with Chandler and Hammett -- and his detective,
Lew Archer, is a paradigmatic figure. I immensely enjoyed all the twists and turns the novel had to offer (a lot of ins, a lot of outs) and I like the way Macdonald handles coincidence in this one -- it's just enough to string you along but stops a hair's breadth short of far-fetched. I'd like to read more books in the series; fortunately, or unfortunately depending on where you're sitting, there are twenty-odd books in the series, meaning I'll soon need to deploy a small army of spinsters to help me read.

Incidentally, I just found out there's a book called "Maigret and the Spinster," which I can't wait to read of course. Oh, and I found out that Macdonald's fictional name for Santa Barbara was "Santa Teresa," which is what Sue Grafton calls the town in her Kinsey Milhone books (this pleases me). I'm full of wonderment today.

In any case, I hope the next one I read is also a vintage copy (my "Zebra-Striped Hearse" was a first edition if that means anything) because they're so delightfully smelly and this one came with a great publisher's note:
"Like Chandler and Hammett before him, Ross Macdonald writes for the general literate public. That mystery fans also like his work is all to the good."

Queens Noir

I'm so excited about the forthcoming Queens Noir anthology from Akashic Books. They do a whole series of noir, with each book set in a different city. It sounds like an incredibly fun series. Brooklyn Noir is already in its third, highly-acclaimed, volume (Pete Hamill's short story, The Book Signing, was an Edgar nominee).

My reading list grows ever longer! Luckily, I can sneak these short stories in between novels. Here's the link: http://www.akashicbooks.com/noirseries.htm

But wait, I almost forgot the best part. Not only is my adopted borough featured in the series, but my native town is also represented -- Toronto Noir! I couldn't be happier, and I hope this gives some Canadian writers their due. No author info is available on the site yet, but this gal hopes to see lots of fresh Canadian talent. We're a dark, twisted people.

Le Roman Policier

Here's a fun website for those interested in learning more about French Crime Fiction (and really, who isn't?):
http://www.crimeculture.com/Contents/FrenchCrimeFiction.htm

Maigret et moi

I've found a new (to me) author that I want to praise here: Georges Simenon. I knew him only sort-of, only by name, but he's huge. Literally, his body of work includes 212 novels and over 50 film adaptations.

I'm completely hooked after reading only one book and now I want to read all the inspector Maigret books. I haven't like a gumshoe this much since Inspector Wexford.
Maigret is a gruffly affectionate, solid, down-to-earth type. In "Maigret Mystified" he tracks down the killer of Raymond Couchet, an entrepreneur in the pharmaceutical trade, with the requisite (in French novels anyway) wives and mistresses, each named in a suspicious will. Couchet's fortune was amassed only after years of reckless gambles with fate, which so exasperated his first wife that she left him to shack up with a petty official because he had a "good pension." Now she resides in an apartment complex that overlooks his offices, a cruelly ironic slap in the face to her, as she must witness her first husband amassing greater wealth by the day while her new husband fails to live up to his initial promise. Maigret trails Couchet's mistress, son, and second wife, but the trail ultimately leads back to the first wife, now Madame Martin. Has Couchet's success driven the mercenary woman to murder?

This book is deceptive. It's a mere 138 pages, doesn't look like much, and doesn't start out particularly compelling either. But then it builds marvelously, layering on these neurotic characters in this claustrophobic apartment, until he ensnares you in his dark chamber-drama. The bourgeois petty official, Monsieur Martin, becomes an object of pity and also of disgust; his wife is just monstrous. She is everything grasping and greedy, she is shrill and and tyrannical, she constantly bemoans her bad luck and misfortune, an emaciated harpy. This couple wears on Maigret's nerves, and he finds himself longing for ruthless dangerous killers to deal with instead of "all this slimy greyness, these family quarrels, and the crime which was still inexplicable, but whose haunting horror he could guess at." The creeping horror of the Martin family soon takes over the book, and this reader found herself almost rooting for poor henpecked Monsieur Martin, if only he weren't so banal himself. When he breaks down in front of Maigret he laments his lot as a bureaucrat: "My whole life ... thiry-two years ... every day ... at nine o'clock ... never incurred a reproof ... and all that for --" Ah, what's it all about Monsieur Martin, you weak-willed conformist! In his frenzy, he topples his radio, and suddenly the bean-counting, paper-pusher re-emerges: "A set that cost me twelve-hundred francs! I had to wait three years before I could afford it."

The mystery really takes a backseat to the indictment of the bourgeoisie, but the Martins are so loathsome and suffocating that they'll stay with this reader for a long time, memorable villains because of their very blandness.

No one can do class-commentary like the French! And boo-sucks to gold-diggers everywhere -- only madness awaits you!
I can't wait to read more Maigret.
Toodles,
Auntie Darling
P.S. Here's a link to something fun.

Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction

So for all you spinsters out there who’ve read a decent thriller and thought, “I could do that too,” I’d recommend you start by taking a look at Patricia Highsmith’s Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction. I haven’t exactly read all her novels, but I loved The Talented Mr. Ripley, and I’ll definitely try to read some of her short stories after this (as for Strangers on a Train, I’ll probably just cheat and watch the movie, which has been on my “Hitchcock to Watch” list for a while, but keeps getting bumped since all I like to do is watch Vertigo and Rear Window and Rope over and over).

Highsmith writes about development, plotting, drafts and revisions, the dreaded snags a writer may encounter, and about what she calls “the germ of an idea.” She talks about the need to have a basic story trajectory, if not necessarily an outline. As she puts it, “Early in development, the writer must ask these crucial questions: ‘Is the hero going to emerge from this victor or vanquished?’” Highsmith uses an instinctive form of plotting, in which she’ll let a story sit, like photographic paper in a chemical bath, until the plot comes into focus. This is a method of writing that may seem to involve long stretches of doing nothing, but as Highsmith says, “Writers are always working … [They] are either developing an idea or they are questing, even if unconsciously, for the germ of an idea.” This agreed with me greatly, mainly because it’s so close to the way I work – you sort of leave yourself open to ideas, you let your fancy and imagination wander and soak up the inspiration all around you – with the only difference being that Pat Highsmith eventually sits down and gets to work instead of daydreaming and making cookies all damn day.

Aside from a few basics, Highsmith’s book is very light on technique and tends more toward frank and commonsense advice, and a good dose of inspiration. She cautions us not to be lazy, not to go with situations and resolutions that are predictable and boring – challenge yourself, she says – and reminds us that the key to good writing is enthusiasm. If it isn’t fun for you, how will it be fun for the reader? Writing for her isn’t some soul-rending task; it’s a well-played game that one takes immense pleasure in playing and observing.

To this end, a good opening is vital, for a strong first sentence, page, and paragraph make the difference between a browser and a reader. One should revise an opening as many times as need until it is just right. In editing, she says, ruthlessness is essential. Equally important is practice – writing is a muscle that atrophies when it isn’t exercised, and a lazy writer will never write sharp prose if she only works at it sporadically. Here’s where the concept of the sacred space comes in – whether it’s a few hours every day after work, or eight hours on a Saturday, a writer must have a time and space without distraction or interruption, where writing comes first, and it must be done regularly and consistently if one hopes to see any results at all.

Highsmith writes about the joy that comes from telling a good story and keeping your audience in suspense – which are always one and the same, regardless of genre, since, after all, every narrative has an element of suspense in it, or should – and it is when she lets herself go a little on the joys of the craft that the book is most inspirational. There are many points during the reading of it that a beginning writer will get the sense that she is definitely on the right track, and all that needs be done is to sit down and write what’s in her head. I think a lot of beginning writers over-prepare, study too much theory and technique, make too many character studies and outlines, as a means of procrastinating. Highsmith’s book will let you know that you simply can’t go wrong if you have even one story-telling instinct in your entire body, because “The writer’s mind has a way of arranging a chain of events in a naturally dramatic, and therefore correct form.”

Wit, whist and whimsy

I've decided something: I need to learn how to play whist. I'm not sure why exactly. Maybe because they always seem to be playing whist in novels. Observe these very literary references*:

* Edgar Allan Poe wrote about whist on his tale The Murders in the Rue
Morgue: "[...] Whist has long been noted for its influence upon what
is termed the calculating power; and men of the highest order of
intellect have been known to take an apparently unaccountable delight
in it, [...]"

* Al Shockley and Jack Torrence play Whist during a flashback scene in
Stephen King's The Shining.

* Phileas Fogg, the hero of Jules Vernes novel Around the World in
Eighty Days, is a dedicated whist player.

* Edward Gorey made a mention of whist in his illustrated book The
Glorious Nosebleed, the selection reading:
"They played whist distractedly."

And of course, Scarlett O'Hara was always playing whist with carpetbaggers, and I read that book as a kid and it affected me greatly (from then all all my Barbie games were set during the Civil War, which also served to explain the lack of Kens most conveniently).

Whatever the cause, this inexplicable desire has remained in the foggier parts of my consciousness for some time, but today I learned something that set the urge ablaze once more, namely that there is a version of the game called "Three-Handed Widow's Whist" – and immediately I had to have it.

In Widow's Whist, you deal out one extra hand, which sits at the left of the dealer. Three other hands are dealt, one for each player (it's a 3-player version) and the player to the left of the dealer has the option of keeping their own hand or trading it for the "widow" hand.

All of this is marvellous for many reasons, not the least of which is that I can finally start my own Whist Society.

Can't you just picture a society of genteel ladies, faded Southern belles perhaps, sipping whiskey and playing a rousing yet decorous game of cards? I can see it now. And as such I have officially decided to found the Widow's Whist Society and Temperance League, Queens Chapter.

For the edification of potential applicants to the league, rules are as follows:

1) Temperance is suspended while cards are in play
2) Bourbon is to be served at all games. In the absence of servants,
use children from the neighborhood. I suggest using orphans.
3) Appropriate attire is encouraged. This includes, but is not
limited to: hats, gloves, stockings with garters or with that seam up
the back, dresses. If you can't afford stockings, use eyeliner to
draw a seam up the back of your leg.
4) Men are welcome if they adhere to the rules of appropriate attire.
5) If at any point the lights go off and when they come back on again
we find there's been a murder, the game will be considered a draw.

Light refreshments will be provided.

* Literary references stolen from Wikipedia :)

I reckon these here recipes are as much fun as solving mysteries

I just finished another delightful and hilarious installment of Joan Hess’s Maggody series, “Mortal Remains In Maggody,” in which a porn crew comes to town and recruits blissfully ignorant townspeople as extras (who all think they’re going to star in a big Hollywood movie). More and more townspeople are recruited, especially when principal cast member start turnin’ up dead. I won’t spoil the rest for you all.

Speaking of Maggody, I can’t believe I didn’t direct all my gentle readers to this website in my last review, but here it is now: www.maggody.com. For the gal who’s hooked on Maggody and bored at work, this website has everything. I’m a big fan of the “Recipe of the Month” column, brought to you courtesy of Ruby Bee and various members of the Maggody/Farberville community. From Leigh Ann Warren Kennedy’s Biscuits to Wanda Nell’s Fried Chicken, there’s something for everyone. There’s also a map of Maggody, short stories, musical Maggody featuring lyrics from songs with great titles like “You’re Just a Detour on The Highway to Heaven,” Arkansas trivia, also brought to you by Ruby Bee, a map of Maggody (maps are helpful when solving crime), and ever so many other delightful links and things.

The most amazing thing I learned was that Joan Hess is the vice president of something called “The Whimsey Foundation,” which is technically devoted to honoring “significant achievement in comedic mystery fiction” but which I like to imagine is an entity entirely dedicated to whimsy in all its forms. In fact, Ms. Hess belongs to a number of society’s I wouldn’t mind joining, but unfortunately I’m neither a mystery writer, nor am I from Arkansas. Yet. (It is my ambition to one day be from Arkansas.)

But wait – it gets better. There’s also an organization called “Sisters In Crime,” who’s purpose is to "To combat discrimination against women in the mystery field, educate publishers and the general public as to inequities in the treatment of female authors, raise the level of awareness of their contributions to the field, and promote the professional advancement of women who write mysteries." How fantastic is that? So I trawled around on that website too and realized that they have a NEW YORK CHAPTER and they meet monthly! At the library! In my excitement I filled out their online application for membership, and I’m so excited I think I’ll grind all my other membership cards into a fine powder. Excecpt for the Posh Spice fan club. I'll hang on to that.

Greetings, Spinsters.

I recently got the most heartening email from a reader, who complained that I hadn’t posted in over two weeks. I love that someone is actually reading this, and I love that this reader/friend keeps me on my toes.
Now that I’ve had a taste of power, I’m hungry for more. By that I mean that I want more people to email me. Possibly people who read this blog. As such, I have set up an email account, strictly for spinster-related purposes: bourbonandtea@gmail.com.

Incidentally, it seems that more than one gal fancies herself a spinster aunt, seeing as how the name was already taken in Gmail. I ought to email her and have a chat.

Moving on.

I’d love to tell you all that I’ve been terribly busy these past few weeks, but we all know that lies make baby Jesus cry, therefore I am forced to admit that I’ve been up to nothing much at all and there is absolutely no reason for me not to have written more in the past few weeks, not an internet crisis, not Christmas, not plumb forgetting I even have a blog, nothing. No excuse. Just laziness. Well, that and I was reading a very un-spinstery book, which was magnificent but I felt no desire to blog about it (the book is Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and it made me cry in front of people because it was so great – don’t finish it in a public place if you’re a sensitive spinster like I). I have since recovered and am back to reading good old-fashioned mystery novels, specifically, Mortal Remains In Maggody (hilarious so far, of course).

But what I’d really like to tell you about today is a great movie from 1980 starring Goldie Hawn and the United States Army, a movie in which she decides spinsterhood is preferable to marrying a rich French doctor who lives in a castle: Private Benjamin.

I Netflixed this movie at the behest of my roommate, who says the final scene made a lasting impression on her when she saw it as a child. It made quite an impression on me too, and got the old mind whirling. In a semi-buzzed haze (red wine is always a pleasant accompaniment to movies) I started making all kinds of weird semiotic connections based on that last shot, mainly based on the fact that Goldie looks a bit like the Lady of Shallot in that scene.

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. First, the film. I liked it quite a bit, and thought Goldie did a great job proving her comic chops. The general consensus seems to be that it isn’t as funny as Stripes but that it’s pretty good and Goldie is terrific. A lot of folks seem to think it’s dated, and some find the third act really boring and strange, like a different movie. I have to admit that there was a feeling of disconnect when we swung into act three (and confusion, since Goldie’s voice over says she’s in Belgium just as we’re looking at a shot of Paris, but whatever), but I kind of like that: it’s abrupt, but it’s such a departure from the structural formula that I thought it was kind of fun. And if you found the third act boring I think you missed a lot of the point of that film – and it’s not like it was super subtle, so there’s really no excuse here.
I personally liked the film quite a bit, as is to be expected, because I’m such a big ole feminist. Girl wants to leave philandering jerk and have a real career, that’s fine by me. And no, that’s not dated. That’s never dated. Not marrying jerks is always fresh. A Hollywood cliché, yes, but always a good idea in real life.

Okay, now that Lady of Shallot thing.

In the final shot of the film, Goldie tosses her veil and strides confidently out into the French countryside to meet her fate. Looking at her in her white dress with all that “bright hair streaming down” made me think of the Waterhouse painting of the Lady of Shallot. Observe:


Goldie


The Lady of Shallot

Alright, so big deal. So she looks like some painting. But it’s kind of interesting given that the Lady of Shallot was stuck in some tower, broke the rules and died, and Judy Benjamin was stuck in a symbolic tower, broke the rules but instead of dying, she triumphs.
And what about all that “crazy” talk that her parents give her, telling people she’s in a mental home, telling her she doesn’t know her own mind, she can’t make her own decisions? And her jerk of a fiancé trying to gaslight her, telling her she’s being crazy to imagine him sleeping with the maid (which he later confesses to, using the exact phrase, “OK I slept with her one night when you were acting CRAZY”)??? Everyone around her is telling her she’s crazy, she’s got this insane-looking hair and the same crazed look in her eyes she had at the beginning of the film, she looks like a raving Victorian madwoman! And then all of a sudden she begins to see clearly, she stops looking at life through a mirror (if you will) and faces it straight on. Only instead of boating to her death downriver to Camelot, she marches gracefully along on her way, never looking back.

Call me nuts, but it’s always bugged me how the patriarchy will tell a perfectly normal woman that she’s acting insane just because she doesn’t want to conform to their damn standards. All that was subtextually expressed in this film, from the more overt lines of dialogue (OK, I guess the subtext was text there) to the imagery of the lady in white in the final shot.

And all the army stuff was funny as hell, too.