Sunday, March 29, 2009
It's weird. The more I work on this blog's appearance, the more ideas I have for posts and such. I'm pretty excited about the week to come at the moment as far as the blog goes, but kind of feeling like a low-impact post today. So, I realized it had been a while since I did a cool stuff one.
This is part of my collection of old tin toy dishes. I've been interested in them for a very long time, ever since my Aunt Helen gave a bunch to my sister and me to play with when we were kids. Even then, I thought they were cool and different. I always wanted to collect more of them someday. For a brief time, I did, until the market just went right through the ceiling. I officially stopped looking at them on eBay the day I found a set listed at $1000 and bid up to nearly $1600.
But I really enjoy the ones I have. My favorites were produced by the Ohio Art company, generally between 1930 and 1960. Fern Bisel Peat was an artist for them, and her designs are particularly fun and colorful. Sometimes she signs them. I don't think any of mine are signed, though. I love the red and yellow tray with the little boy and little girl. I also like the Humpty Dumpty set because it came from my Aunt Helen, and the little Mexican boy eating the banana (they weren't always PC.) My complete collection isn't pictured here, but this post has inspired me to change out the ones I have on my shelf!
This is part of my collection of old tin toy dishes. I've been interested in them for a very long time, ever since my Aunt Helen gave a bunch to my sister and me to play with when we were kids. Even then, I thought they were cool and different. I always wanted to collect more of them someday. For a brief time, I did, until the market just went right through the ceiling. I officially stopped looking at them on eBay the day I found a set listed at $1000 and bid up to nearly $1600.
But I really enjoy the ones I have. My favorites were produced by the Ohio Art company, generally between 1930 and 1960. Fern Bisel Peat was an artist for them, and her designs are particularly fun and colorful. Sometimes she signs them. I don't think any of mine are signed, though. I love the red and yellow tray with the little boy and little girl. I also like the Humpty Dumpty set because it came from my Aunt Helen, and the little Mexican boy eating the banana (they weren't always PC.) My complete collection isn't pictured here, but this post has inspired me to change out the ones I have on my shelf!
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Wealth, Power and Tragedy: Behind the (fictional) Scenes with the Kennedys
One of the books I took with me on vacation was Laurie Graham's wonderful
The Importance of Being Kennedy. Because of it, she's made my favorite authors list, as observant readers may have noticed already.
Taking bags and bags of books on vacation is somewhat of a family tradition of mine. When I was growing up, there was a wonderful campground on the Canadian side of Lake Erie that we went to every summer. We'd pack our swimsuits, our beach towels, our sand toys and our books. I still remember one summer, my mom had a book called The Kennedy Women. When I asked her how it was, she said "Don't marry a Kennedy when you grow up."
Graham's behind-the-scenes fictionalized version of the early lives of the nine Kennedy brothers and sisters adds another voice to that particular chorus. Always believing their children were marked for greatness, Joe Sr. and Rose pushed them relentlessly, isolated them socially, and never allowed even a momentary lapse in the high standards they set. You can imagine the difficulties this would have meant for a child with an iconoclastic bent, or worse, one who did not have the capabilities to meet these standards. The book focuses mostly on two like this.
Those who pick up this book to learn fictional nanny Nora Brennan's take on the more famous brothers, Jack, Bobby and Teddy, will be disappointed. They're in there, all right, but they're minor characters. Nora left Ireland as a young woman to seek a life in America with more options than marrying a farmer and having lots of babies. She got a job as a nanny with the Kennedy family, and there was lots of work to do. The two children that especially captured Nora's heart were Rosemarie and Kathleen. I've never really read much about the Kennedy family -- like the royals in England, it's sort of the story every American just knows -- but I was always under the impression that Rose Kennedy was well-liked. It was surprising to me that Nora reserved a great deal of vitriol for her, painting her as an overbearing cheapskate with a cold heart, who only loved based on potential.
I didn't know much at all about the early lives of the Kennedy children, so it interested me to know exactly how many there were, and where the family got their money and fame. I'd always viewed Joe Sr. as a notorious womanizer with some questionable business associations, but Nora (and Graham) paint a surprisingly forgiving picture of him. He's largely absent, though, and a catalyst to the story. Maybe that's how the children primarily experienced him: the man who came around once in a while and handed out candy and told them how proud he was of them and how they were shaping up to be winners already, then whisked them away to Hollywood or to England.
The story really picks up when the family moves abroad. Joe Kennedy had been given the post of Ambassador to England, and the family went along. This is also where Nora begins to get a story of her own, as she meets a man who works at the country house of a duke in the course of chaperoning the energetic Kick (Kathleen). I liked this aspect of the book. It made the story more believable. It's a common device in historical fiction, to invent a character that was privy to the events the author wants to relate. It's less common to see them as characters with lives and desires of their own, rather than human camcorders switched on at an opportune time.
World War II keeps coming up in my reading lately, and I may do a Books of a Feather on it sometime soon. Graham captures much of the chaos, the fear and excitement existing simultaneously, and the feeling that one could do whatever one wanted to do because soon it wouldn't matter anyway. Some of the Kennedys get caught up in these feelings. Others, particularly the parents, do not. This is where the title of the novel really starts to take force. The kids were raised with certain beliefs about what Kennedys do and do not do. As they blossom into adulthood, the beliefs start to conflict with their personal desires and (in the case of Rosemarie) their own capabilities. At the start of the novel, Nora's nephew explains that Nora never believed in "the Kennedy curse," that Joe and Rose brought the calamities upon their kids with the attitudes they raised them with. In some cases, proving their Kennedyness led to disaster, other times to glory, and in the case of Joe Jr., both simultaneously. If you're interested in the Kennedy family or in World War II, this book is a good read, and offers a bit of a different perspective.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Treasure Trash: A Great BTT
This week's question:
I have a lot of best 'worst' books, both in my personal library and on my list of favorites. Probably the ultimate one is The Dirt by Motley Crue. I've written about this one several times as being the ulitmate sex, drugs, and rock n' roll memoir. I think it's because the people who generally write books on these topics are repentant to some degree. The memoirs of Tatum O'Neill and Danny Bonaduce cover how they got into drugs and alcohol and how it messed up their lives. But they don't cover the fun parts, at least not to the gory detail that the Crue does. I should probably be ashamed of liking this book. But I can't help it. I love it.
The works of V.C Andrews were a force in the young lives of many women my age. I remember when that travesty of a film came out, and how scary it looked (I rented it in high school and laughed at it). I felt really brave and mature reading the Flowers in the Attic series, although they weren't so much horror as "gothic" in a way. Flowers in the Attic is still my favorite series, although I read all the Heaven and Dawn books too. I got tired of the repetition, and the ones that weren't actually written by her look to be even worse, so I believe I stopped there. But the Flowers in the Attic books are definitely captivating reads. The one about Cathy's son flags a little, and the final book is almost all denouement. But the title book in the series, the book chronicling their attempts to fit back into society and put their past behind them, and the prequel book explaining why the grandmother was such an evil bitch are full of suspense and tension.
They're also not terribly well-written, I know that. Most of the characters are one-dimensional, the dialogue is bad, and many of the scenarios strain credulity. If I read them now for the first time, I'd probably hate them. But as it is, I think they provide hours of entertainment!
Incidentally, does anyone out there know how to change font size in html code? This is way too small throughout, I think.
Best Bad Book? March 26, 2009
Filed under: Wordpress — --Deb @ 1:36 am
Suggested by Janet:
The opposite of last week’s question: “What’s the best ‘worst’ book you’ve ever read — the one you like despite some negative reviews or features?”
I have a lot of best 'worst' books, both in my personal library and on my list of favorites. Probably the ultimate one is The Dirt by Motley Crue. I've written about this one several times as being the ulitmate sex, drugs, and rock n' roll memoir. I think it's because the people who generally write books on these topics are repentant to some degree. The memoirs of Tatum O'Neill and Danny Bonaduce cover how they got into drugs and alcohol and how it messed up their lives. But they don't cover the fun parts, at least not to the gory detail that the Crue does. I should probably be ashamed of liking this book. But I can't help it. I love it.
The works of V.C Andrews were a force in the young lives of many women my age. I remember when that travesty of a film came out, and how scary it looked (I rented it in high school and laughed at it). I felt really brave and mature reading the Flowers in the Attic series, although they weren't so much horror as "gothic" in a way. Flowers in the Attic is still my favorite series, although I read all the Heaven and Dawn books too. I got tired of the repetition, and the ones that weren't actually written by her look to be even worse, so I believe I stopped there. But the Flowers in the Attic books are definitely captivating reads. The one about Cathy's son flags a little, and the final book is almost all denouement. But the title book in the series, the book chronicling their attempts to fit back into society and put their past behind them, and the prequel book explaining why the grandmother was such an evil bitch are full of suspense and tension.
They're also not terribly well-written, I know that. Most of the characters are one-dimensional, the dialogue is bad, and many of the scenarios strain credulity. If I read them now for the first time, I'd probably hate them. But as it is, I think they provide hours of entertainment!
Incidentally, does anyone out there know how to change font size in html code? This is way too small throughout, I think.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Under Construction
Upon reflection, I decided that my most recent look was, in fact, too pink. It wasn't a bad template. If there was any way at all to tone down the Pepto Pink on the sides, I would have done it and hung on to it for a while. I liked the pink/grey scheme I had going, but it was just way too much.
I started hunting for a new template before I went on vacation. I looked at a bunch, but my search was really over the minute I found this "Colibri" template. It was at eblogtemplates.com, the very first thing that will come up if you just google "blog templates," like I did. It's still a work in progress, but I hope you all like it as much as I do.
Unfortunately, I didn't quite realize that this change was going to completely wipe out all of my sidebar stuff. All my links, my TBR vanquished list, everything, gone. But maybe it's for the best. There was quite a bit of dead wood on the TBR, I know, and perhaps the links could have used some pruning and updating as well. So if you used to be linked here and now you're not, I'll get it back up shortly. If you notice it's been a week or so, though, a reminder wouldn't go amiss.
I started hunting for a new template before I went on vacation. I looked at a bunch, but my search was really over the minute I found this "Colibri" template. It was at eblogtemplates.com, the very first thing that will come up if you just google "blog templates," like I did. It's still a work in progress, but I hope you all like it as much as I do.
Unfortunately, I didn't quite realize that this change was going to completely wipe out all of my sidebar stuff. All my links, my TBR vanquished list, everything, gone. But maybe it's for the best. There was quite a bit of dead wood on the TBR, I know, and perhaps the links could have used some pruning and updating as well. So if you used to be linked here and now you're not, I'll get it back up shortly. If you notice it's been a week or so, though, a reminder wouldn't go amiss.
Back from Vacation, with an E-pisotlary delight of a novel
It turned out that my choices for vacation books were pretty decent! The first one, which I finished on the plane ride down, is Matt Beaumont's E. I checked it out because I'm interested in the internet in literature. It's hard to believe the book is almost ten years old, as it still feels current. The book is set in an ad agency in London and has our protagonists staggering to work nursing hangovers on the first day of the new millenium. Things at the agency are generally in a state of general chaos threatening total disaster, and the beginning of the new millenium is no exception. One of their accounts hangs in the balance as two creative teams duke out a strategy. Another is all aflutter with activity as they prepare for a commercial shoot on location in Mauritius. But everyone's primary preoccupation is winning the mother of all accounts: Coca-Cola.
The entire story is told through emails, and the devices have only become more familiar as time wears on: the passive-aggressive emoticons ("Hope you don't mind staying through until 9 tonight to work off that long lunch :)"), the pretentious signature lines, the outbursts of playfulness in the subject line, and the "bcc" feature for all your backstabbing needs.
Beaumont draws vivid, if familiar, characters through mere emails. There's the tempermental CEO; the anal-retentive secretary, the ditzy secretary, and the slutty secretary; the horny young men who can most often be found hiding out at a nearby bar, if not in an elevator between floors with the Slutty Secretary; the Closeted Married Creative guy; the nerd; the hippie; the naive, starry-eyed recent grad, etc. I'd recommend this book as an excellent vacation read, especially since the terse emails provide an average of three logical stopping places per page. It's very enjoyable and funny, but also a decent picture of what corporate e-life is like.
The entire story is told through emails, and the devices have only become more familiar as time wears on: the passive-aggressive emoticons ("Hope you don't mind staying through until 9 tonight to work off that long lunch :)"), the pretentious signature lines, the outbursts of playfulness in the subject line, and the "bcc" feature for all your backstabbing needs.
Beaumont draws vivid, if familiar, characters through mere emails. There's the tempermental CEO; the anal-retentive secretary, the ditzy secretary, and the slutty secretary; the horny young men who can most often be found hiding out at a nearby bar, if not in an elevator between floors with the Slutty Secretary; the Closeted Married Creative guy; the nerd; the hippie; the naive, starry-eyed recent grad, etc. I'd recommend this book as an excellent vacation read, especially since the terse emails provide an average of three logical stopping places per page. It's very enjoyable and funny, but also a decent picture of what corporate e-life is like.
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