Warm Glowing Warming Glow

Forget It, Jake. It's Chinatown.

A while ago, one of my friends asked me to define "film noir."  I said something about the entanglement of private and public corruption.  I was wrong -- some of the best film noir (The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, The Asphalt Jungle . . .) is about crime that has nothing to do with the common weal.  On the other hand, there is a growing sub-genre of noir books and films that follow the Chinatown model of using the hard-boiled detective genre to talk about crime both private and public. 

The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon.  This novel is getting a lot of attention right now, and deservedly so.  It's been what?  Six years since The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay?   A while.  This novel didn't  have the same effect on me that the earlier one did, in part, probably, because Chabon sticks to the noir formula so closely: genre conventions do tend to eliminate the flashes of unexpected brilliance in which Kavalier & Clay abounded.  The Yiddish Policemen's Union is very, very good, however: there are passages in which Chabon makes it look so easy that I actually thought out loud, "Oh, I could write this."  (I couldn't write that.)  For a genre exercise, the novel is unusually inaccessible, however.  I consider myself pretty Jew-adjacent.  I know a fair amount of Yiddish and a good deal about Jewish social convention and religious practices, but I still spent the first half of the book wrestling with words and trying to figure out which parts Chabon invented wholesale. 

City of Tiny Lights, Patrick Neate.  I wonder if Chabon was influenced at all by this novel, about a Pakistani-English private investigator who becomes embroiled in a murder investigation that is in turn related to terrorism.  Neate uses similar narrative techniques to discuss similar themes.  Somehow, I don't think that this book sold that well in the U.S.: I had never heard of it before picking up a copy at a flea market.  Since then, I've seen copies fairly often at used bookstores and charity sales.  If you should happen to spy one, you should probably buy it, because it is very good.

No Dominion, Charlie Huston.  I may have talked about this book before.  I know I've talked about Charlie Huston before.  He seems to be going through a very prolific period right now: he's published something like five books in the last two or three years.  All of them are very violent and very good.  No Dominion is the second volume in a series about a vampire private investigator and it's awfully good.  (I think there might be a similar TV series debuting this fall, possibly on CBS.)

Cooking for Elks

Dear Jenny,

I'm finally caught up on Top Chef and I wanted to do a brief recap of last night's episode, but I'm actually far more interested in pitching the new show idea I just came up with.  Do you think you can help me develop it? 

I was struck, while watching the show, by how much wittier ("But Grandma's chicken will kill you!"), more astute and more bullshit-proof the Elks were than Tom Colicchio and company.  (To be fair, I think Chef is generally a good judge and an interesting correspondent, but last night's puns -- invariably followed by canned laughter from the rest of the jury -- seemed horribly forced.)  So I had this idea.  I'm going to call it Cooking for Seniors.  It's going to be just like Top Chef, only the judges will be your mother, my mother and a rotating third slot, to be filled by a member of one of their book clubs.   There will be no more talk about flavor profiles.  Nothing they eat will be "bright" or "muddy."   You can be the host, but only if you bring the décolletage. 

Speaking of which: is it just me or was Padma wearing kind of a lot of clothes last night?  I got to thinking that maybe the Elks Lodge had been established as a Frottage Threat Level Orange Zone or something.  Thoughts? 

Love,

-- Pete

The Boy from Branson

I'm back to watching As the World Turns, because I'm interested in the story of gay teen Luke Snyder (Van Hansis).  Luke has been on the backburner since sometime last fall, when he expressed concern that maybe the kids at his school might not accept him, and then disappeared for a good long while.  Apparently everything was just peachy?  Then earlier this spring, I read reports that the producers had cast the role of Noah Mayer (Jake Silberman), a character slated to be Luke's love interest.  Silberman's first air date was May 31, while I was in Slovenia.  I've watched the show for the last week or so, though, and it appears that I have not missed any of the Luke-Noah love story.  Right now, it looks like Noah is supposed to be a love interest for Luke's friend Maddie Coleman (Alexandra Chando).  The only inkling that Noah might be something other than entirely straight was the dark pronouncement, uttered in yesterday's show, that he and his family back in Branson don't see eye to eye.  I'll keep you posted. 

The rest of the show is driving me insane.  Maddie's friend, teen sensation/child bride Gwen Norbeck Munson (played by teen sensation/daughter of Michael Landon Jennifer Landon), has developed this homunculus, named Cleo Babbitt, a horrifying creature played by Landon with a Raggedy Annie wig and dentures.  For the past week, Cleo has gotten a lot of screen time.  The only other thing that appears to be going on is a turgid storyline involving a marriage of convenience that seems to have turned into a kidnapping, with assorted corporate skullduggery and apocalyptic visions thrown in for good measure. 

Sladoled!

I didn't spend enough time taking photos of food while I was gone. 

This is Lake Bled.  Lake Bled is best known for its local dessert, something called the cream slice.  The cream slice is a shell of flaky pastry, filled with custard and whipped cream, served in cube-shaped slices about the size of a human head.  I love and miss the cream slice. 

These are the remains of a traditional Slovene meal, which consisted of every type of product you can get out of that magical animal Jenny's people don't eat and horseradish.  Because there were vegetarians in the group, we also had bread, a few slices of Alsatian cheese and about a teaspoon of something that looked and tasted like spinach dip. 

The building on the left is Pri Slonu (Hotel Elephant), in the old part of Ljubljana.   This is the place I most frequently busted out my few words of Slovene: "Črna kava, prosim."   The coffee in Ljubljana is generally excellent.  Directly behind the building on the left is the beautiful Ljubljanska, a river that's apparently archaeologically significant?  I don't know.  I do know that the ice cream (sladoled) you can get on its banks is delicious, easily as good as the gelatto we had in Venice.  Best flavor: Raffaello.

This is my favorite Central European snack food, "Smoki" brand flips sa kikikirijem, which were sort of like cheese doodles, only peanut-flavored. 

The Curious Incident of the Wacky Family

On my way to Ljubljana, I stopped in London, and ganked a couple of books not yet available in the Colonies.  So, to rub it in . . .

A Spot of Bother, Mark Haddon.  Haddon's last book, of course, was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the book everyone was reading in I'm going to say 2003.  (At some point, I want to do a study of some sort about how it seems like at any given time, everyone you know is reading one particular book.  Like right now, I think everyone is reading Jodi Picoult.  Last year, it was Middlesex.)  A Spot of Bother is neither as buzz-prone (no flashy narrative tricks, no mystery) nor as -- um, good -- as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.  It actually reads a bit like Brothers & Sisters in novel form.   Haddon does an excellent job with one character, however: George, the patriarch balancing between existential anxiety and full-blown madness, is so compelling he almost throws the book off balance.

The Book of Lost Things, John Connolly.   Wow.  I'm not sure where to start.  Let's try, imagine The Wizard of Oz or The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, only informed by actual psychological insight.   On the eve of World War II, a London adolescent loses his mother.  When the Blitz begins, his family -- father, stepmother, baby half-brother -- withdraws to a remote house while the boy withdraws into his reading.  Then either he goes completely bat-shit crazy, or there's magic, or he's just working things out, allegorically -- take your pick.  No matter how you interpret what's going on, though, there's a lot that's just really disturbing and amazing.  I think people are letting their kids read this book, which . . . bravo. 

Pornoslavia

Hey!  I just got back from Slovenia.  I was there for two weeks, taking a class.  Even though I saw a lot throughout the country and got what I think was a decent exposure to Ljubljana's night life, I missed one big attraction -- free late-night porn. -- Peter
 

More Recent Crafts, Now Without Trans Fats

Cupcake hat for my forthcoming nephew:

And matching Hostess sweater:

-- Jenny

Girl with Pearl Earring, and Digital Cable

I am supposed to be updating things while Peter is in Slovenia, but because Peter planned his trip to coincide with the premieres of Kathy Griffin and Top Chef, this has not happened. Also, I have PTSD from this week's elimination challenge and have taken to my bed until I can get the image of skinned rattlesnake and geoduck out of my head.

Here are some things I've made recently. I've been on a pearl kick:

Jawbreaker pearls a la Wilma Flintstone.

Oddly rosary-ish pearl lariat.

A copy of something I saw in Shakespeare in Love. In Elizabethan times, necklaces were called "carcanets," which I think is old English for "here's something you can look at instead of my teeth."

--Jenny