hello i must be going.

i forgot what i was watching but when i saw a preview for "hello i must be going" i had to see it. i've been a fan of melanie lynsky ever since she played the adopted mother of those "sound of music" singing kids in "away we go". there is something sweet and likable about her. but what i was most excited was that charlie from "girls" was in it! (random "girls" note but amy's (lynsky) brother looked oddly familiar, i imdb-ed him . . . and it was jessa ex! the one she sexed with shosh still in the room!) since i didn't see it in theater, i checked it out.

the film is about amy, a thirtysomething divorcee. her world has fallen apart due to mentioned divorce. she moved back home and when we mert her, hasn't left the house in 3 months (ridiculous and sad). but things change when she meets jeremy (aka charlie!). he's nineteen and her dad's potential business partner's stepson. they hang out and have sex and eventually fall in love. and from
their secret relationship, amy learns a valuable lesson about love and jeremy learns how to live for himself and do what he wants in life. it's sweet.

the film has a great supporting cast. my favorite was jeremy's mom, who is a psychologist so is open to everything. she believes that her son is gay, though he isnt. and when she finds amy and jeremy skinny dipping buys the story that is a firm of therapy. it's silly but would be nice to have such a support parent though at time she is naive.

there was also a great analogy about love. amy's old high school friend tells her “love isn’t a prize you get at the carnival for squirting water in a clown’s face the longest. if someone loves you, they just love you. love just happen." at the time it seem profound as a future thirtysomething looking for love it's comforting to think love not as a reward for your hard work. but more as something that will just happen. but love is work so i kinda don't agree with it though i think love at first is random but love in a relationship requires work. oh and i love when amy drunkenly butchers this analogy by telling her mother, "it’s not like coming in the clowns face at a carnival.” lol

also the soundtrack was amazing. it was all music by laura veir and the saltbreakers. check her out.

and check out the movie, it was a grand jury selection at sundanese. and also hot sex scenes with charlie! who can say no??!?!

ps the title comes for a groucho marx song. amy and her dad used to watch his films late at night when she was a kid.

palo alto. james franco. (127)

i read online that james franco was doing a fundraiser, kinda like kickstarter but not, to turn his collection of short stories, "palo alto" into a movie.  

before i go on, quick rant about celebrities doing kickstarters.  seriously?!?! doesn't the general public give you enough money by watching your movies and tv shows?  i mean don't you already get paid a ridiculous amount of money for acting yet you are begging common folk for money?  fund your own projects, you can afford it!

back to "palo alto", though i didn't agree with his fundraising, i was excited about reading his work.  i admire his acting and he seems to be pretty intelligent and cultured.  he did go to UCLA and he sat with marina abramovic during her piece "the artist is present" (he was featured in the doc).  so i had pretty high expectations for his writing, but his fundraiser should have been a red flag.

i mean it did seem odd that james franco would have to do a kickstarter with all of his hollywood success but this collection of stories was horrible.  so bad that its no wonder he couldn't find anyone in hollywood to back it, you would have to be an idiot to.  it was bad.  it was like a sad attempt to be "jesus' son" but whereas denis johnson has talent and a way with words, franco has nothing.

i mean i knew it was going to be horrible after reading the first line of the first story, "halloween":

ten years ago, my sophomore year in high school, i killed a woman on halloween.

i swear to god, i am not making this up.  that was the first line.  it reminded me of that "girls" episode when hannah goes to the reading for her old professor and she reads that poorly-written and forced story about her online boyfriend dying.  and her first line is about him dying and she doesn't get a reaction so she repeats the line about him dying assuming people didn't catch it the first time.  so embarrassing.  in my head, i imagined franco repeating "killed" for a reaction and for effect.  

so that line set the tone for the rest of the stories and after that i couldn't take anything seriously.  everything felt forced.  i know what franco was trying to write, he wanted to create some great beat manifesto for generation y but sadly didn't come close.  i mean franco did capture the pretentious ignorance of gen y hipsters.  it was shocking yet lacked any real depth or edge.  it was all self-righteous intensity, kinda like hipsters.  franco's characters were soulless druggies yet would namecheck kerouac, faulkner, and hemingway.  it was as if the mention of their names would result in literary greatness, instead franco just came off like a wannabe beat.

his characters were  bad people, i was disgusted by everything i had read in  the story.  they were bad just for the shock value versus finding a deeper truth.  it was full of lines that i am sure franco wanted his readers' minds to explode as they read but everything was overdone and cliché.

franco's stories were filled with bad stereotypes as well.  the second story is the tale of girl who is . . . good at math!  what girls can't be good at math?!?!  or the slutty asian girl who will love you long time.  there was also a lot of half breeds and even a mormon.  but a mormon who knows nothing about scriptures (mormons, even the bad ones can discuss scriptures).  and just way too many bat shitty crazy boys with too much time and drugs on their hands.

and i mean i get wayward youth, i enjoyed "a clockwork orange" and "trainspotting".  i revered sal paradise.  but there was nothing enjoyable or enlightening about the reckless youth of "palo alto".  it was so bad that i now have a better appreciation for "jesus' son".

but i will add i did enjoy one thing.  i genuinely enjoyed franco's mention of the children books author bill peet.  i actually checked out a handful of his books because they are alluded to in a story.  though i did not believe anyone would let a druggie do service hours at a library.  

but in the end, i am glad i read "palo alto" because now i won't waste my money to help fund a film version or pay for a movie ticket to see it.

the composition. antonio skármeta and alfonso ruano. (123)

i came across "the composition" by antonio skármeta in a flavorpill post about great multicultural books for kids.  after reading the synopsis, i had to check it out.

"the composition" is the story of a young boy, pedro, growing up in chile which is under a dictatorship.   at first pedro, due to his age, was naïve about what is occurring in his country.  his primarily concern is playing soccer (as should be fore a kid).  one day he witnessed the father of his friend daniel being arrested.  when pedro asked why he was arrested, daniel responses that his father was against the dictatorship.  pedro did not understanding what that meant and daniel explained it to him. 

once home,  pedro relayed the story to his father and being a kid is excited about the prospect of getting free candy now that his friend is in charge of the store.  then pedro asked his father if he was against the dictatorship, his father nodded yes.  then he asked his dad, if he , pedro, was against it.  pedro's mother responded that no kids were kids and they had important responsibilities like going to school and being good.  pedro then begins to realize what is going on.

the next day at school, a captain came to pedro's school to run an essay contest about what their family does at night.  pedro was slow to start and talked to a boy next to him.  he asked the boy if he was against the dictatorship to which the boy responded "of course." and discovered that that boy's father was taken away as well.  pedro then wrote his essay.  this part reminded me of "1984" and how it was the children who became the worse enemy.  it is sad to think how the dictatorship attempted to turn their children against their parents.

weeks passed and pedro came home with his essay.  he told his parents about the contest which made them uneasy. i myself was also scared that pedro wrote about his parents listening to the radio at night.  pedro read his essay and he made up a story about his family playing chess.  to which is father responded that they needed to get a chess set.

just as it was described in flavorpill, it was serious and edgy.  i find it interesting in the sense that as a children's books, it questions something that kids should have blind faith in, the government.  yes, children should respect authority figures but they should also be aware of the fact that the government may not always for the rights.

at the end, antonio skármeta explained dictatorships in a short essay.  i thought it was a good inclusion so that kids could truly understand what they had read about.  and maybe it's in the historian in me but i think this is an important read and a discussion point to have with kids, so that they are better aware of the world they live in.

one last note, it was kind of kismet that I had this book because i recently watched "no" and googled because both were about dictatorships in chile. and i discovered that the author, antonio skármeta, wrote a play, "el plebiscito" which "no" was based on.  if you haven't seen it yet, you should see "no", you should check it out.

the lorax (125) and scrambled eggs super (126). dr. seuss.

brother bear checked these out for summer reading and since i never read them, decided to read them with him.

i know, how horrible that i never read "the lorax".  i am pretty sure one of my elementary teachers read it to me but i never read it on my own.  i knew the gist of it (even prior to the movie) and acknowledge that is is an important read for kids.  after reading it, i wished that i had a seed for my brother to plant due to the ending but alas, i didn't.

dr. suess was quite the prophet.  i mean preaching about our responsibility for the planet's survival decades before the green movements of today.  it is also quite anti-capitalism, against the abuse of limited natural resources.  i mean i don't know much about dr. seuss' politics other than he drew political cartoons and was racist (he was against asian immigration in the 40's) so not sure of what hidden messages may be in this story.  but regardless, I think it is important for all kids to learn that "unless" they care for the planet, no one else will and will destroy the planet and will no longer have a home.

dr. seuss's seems like a swell guy for putting out this message but when you juxtaposition it with "scrambled eggs super!", it is almost like he is a different guy!  granted "the lorax" came out about 20 years after "scrambled eggs super" so dr. seuss was more earth conscious.

"scrambled eggs super!" is the story of a young boy, peter t. hooper, who created an amazing meal he called "scrambled eggs super-dee-dooper-dee-bopper, special de luxe à-la-peter t. hooper".  one tuesday, peter t. hooper was about to make scrambled eggs when he thought to himself, how boring to have scrambled eggs using common hen eggs, so he goes hunting for eggs from unique birds. if you know me, i personally am all for this book! i will eat anything and everything based on its uniqueness.  peter t. hooper and i would totally be the best of food friends.

however, when juxtaposition with "the lorax", i am pretty sure the lorax would not agree with what peter t. hooper was doing.  i mean those unique birds had to be on some endangered species list so peter is essentially a poacher.  he did call people to get his eggs for him (like a poacher).  all of these eggs gathered from around the world so one kid can have scrambled eggs is excessive.  the lorax would not approve.

but seriously, i am not that person to be concern about the rights of animals that i eat.  at the heart of it, "scrambled eggs super" is a delightful read and my inner fat kid loves it!!!

peter pan. j.m. barrie. (124)

before i start, i have to say this is a horrible cover.  what was borders thinking?!?!?  i doubt this cover was cool back in 2003 when it was published.  i mean who were they targeting then?  tween nickelback or creed fans? i mean seriously?!? that hot topic tink shirt.  this cover was so horrible, i was embarrassed to check it out and looked for a better cover.  however, i checked out this one because it was the expanded version.

with the occurrence of my 30th birthday, i kept on alluding to my peter pan syndrome but having never read "peter pan", i decided that i should, to make my suffering legit.  so what the general public knows as "peter pan" (thanks to disney) is actually "peter and wendy".  i learned on wikipedia that the first appearance of peter pan was in barrie's work "the little white bird", the chapters devoted to peter were republished as "peter pan in kensington gardens".  from "the little white bird" came a play about "peter pan" and from that came "peter and wendy".  the extended version, i read had "peter and wendy", "peter pan in kensington gardens" and "the blot on peter pan". i couldn't find any information on the last one, so not sure where it came from.

random but before i go on, i have to say that thanks to the film "finding neverland", i saw the narrator as johnny depp playing j.m. barrie.  especially "the blot on peter pan" which read an autobiographical tale of barrie (i think it was).

i wish i had read "peter and wendy" as a child, well actually had it read to me.  the story is written as if the narrator is speaking directly to you.  he breaks the fourth wall and also the wall that prevents narrators from talking to characters.  my wish to have read it as a child is that as an adult i found the story quite sad.   there were clever little parts and the narrator made witty little epiphanies but even with all the tiny smiles it gave me, i was still sad.  if i was a child, i would have focused on all of the adventure and nonsense, a dog as a nanny, flying, the lost boys, the redskins and pirates, and of course i would have wanted to follow peter pan to neverland.  instead, i pitied him, how sad that he would be young and ignorant forever.

my only exposure to peter pan prior to this was the disney movie.  and i know that disney softens things up but i mean "peter and wendy" is pretty edgy for a children's story.  as child we are supposed to admire peter pan as this great adventurer but as an adult i thought he was, to borrow a direct quote from tink, a "silly ass"!  (yes tink really said that.  it was like her go-to expression).  but really peter pan was an ass, like the mean kid in school who is oddly popular.  even though i would classify peter as a jerk, the lost boys revered him.  peter was bossy, always forcing the lost boys to pretend according to his guidelines, and they just went along with what he said.  i found it quite unfair how often they would pretend to eat because he wanted to though often times they were actually hungry and needed a real meal.  i know this might make me sound like a horrible person (though i recognize he was a lowdown cheat) but i understood why captain hook hated peter because of cockiness.  i found the cockiness out of control.  peter made a handful of situations more difficult ie saving tiger lily because he let his ego get the best of him.  it was quite annoying to read.  i also could not forgive him for his absent-mindedness.  i get it, as someone who suffers from peter pan syndrome, i recognize that we are quite selfish and often only focus on ourselves but i am not as bad as peter. it was quite sad to read how he would forget about coming back for wendy for spring cleaning.  and i guess that is the point of peter pan (and also what i recognize is my flaw when it comes to relationships) peter is great for adventures but no one really wants to spend the rest of their life with him because his adventures make his life so reckless.  (seriously this just turned into a #thirtysomethingsinglegirlsproblem moment, don't worry i will save you from reading me working out my issues in this blog).

and just as i saw peter as an ass, i saw tink as a total mean girl.  she was so catty for being a fairy, i mean aren't they sweet by nature?  i remember tink being mean to wendy in the movie and perhaps i blocked out some of the things that were shown in the movie but she was horrible in the book.  for example, having the lost boys shoot her down like a bird (i think that happen in the movie), luckily that acorn saved wendy's life.  and i know that tink wasn't all that bad because she did save peter's life but she was more mischievous then she was helpful.

quicknote:  but when i saw gaga in concert, she did this whole tinkerbell thing where we had to cheer for her so she wouldn't die.  i didn't get it until i read about tinkerbell's death. i also enjoyed the audience interaction.  when i read "peter and wendy" to my future kids, i am going make them clap to save tink.

but even though i found the characters more negative than i anticipated, i felt bad for peter more than i hated him.  it made me sad to imagine the world moving on and peter staying the same.  and what makes it worse, is the fact that peter is complete ignorant that the world is progressing.  he takes wendy's daughter and granddaughter back to neverland for spring cleaning, three generations of women grow up and peter does not take any real notice of the change, just accepts the child.  it broke my heart how peter did not experience the joys and pain of growing up, he would never truly live.

but let me clarify, this was a sad read because i am now an adult.  if i read it as a child, i would have absolutely loved it.  and like i said before there were so many cute and clever parts.  for example, i loved the part when wendy tells peter that a thimble is a kiss and a kiss is a thimble.  adorable.

i also enjoyed "peter pan in the kensington gardens."  i loved how it was narrated, again like listening to a storyteller versus reading a book.  i loved finding out peter's back story.  it was quite tragic.  as a baby, peter decided to return to kensington gardens and lived with the birds and faires.  he had such a grand time that he stayed and sadly it was too long.  when peter, finally decided to return to his mother, she had given up hope and barred the window and had another son.  poor peter.  given this context you can forgive him up for his issues.

in "kensington gardens", you also get all the insider scoop.  the narrator give us a tour of the garden's highlights along with funny little anecdotes.  and the best story of the garden is that of maime, wendy's predessor, the original thimble kisser.  sorry wendy, but i loved maimie, she was more adventurous and more of wild and crazy side.  when her older brother chickened out she decided to hide and sleep in the gardens!  as a result, maime befriends the fairies and then becomes friends with peter.  she stays for a while but decided to go back home but she promised i visit peter and even gave him a goat! so peter could ride around and plan is flute.  just like his namesake, pan. 

i should add that pan was not the only allusion, for queen mab was the queen of the faires of kensington gardens.  

i really enjoyed "peter pan in the kensington gardens" but "the plot on peter" not so much.  it was a poorly written bio. it lacked all of the piazza of the first two pan stories.  barrie tried to hard to be colorful and it resulted in a pathetic narrative.

but all in all.  it was great to finally read "peter pan".  if you haven't read it, you should.  as i read, i realized that i am no longer suffering from the peter pan syndrome because i pitied peter instead of admired him.  i do want to grow up and live and not just be ignorant of the world moving on around me.  i want to grow up!

office girl. joe meno. (122)

while checking out the july must reads from flavorpill and not finding anything to read, i decided to check out last year's july must reads post and found joe meno's "office girl" (i was super disappointed with myself for having not heard of it prior.)  it seemed like the type of book i would love, quirky and funny. of course the cover was adorbs (click on the post to see the hardcover, the paperback is cute as well) and i loved all of the other possible titles:  or bohemians, or young people on bicycles doing troubling things.  though i think the last one makes the best title (it's my inner hipster). and last but not least it was described as "the perks of being a wallflower" but for twentysomethings, though i am now a thirtysomething, i had to check it out.

and love this book, i did.  (sorry no idea where that yoda talk came from.)  but it reminded me of two of my favorite movies: "(500) days of summer", and "beginners"; one of my favorite shows: "girls", and even my one of my favorite books: "high fidelity".

"office girl" is the story of odile (pronounced o-deel) and jack, two chi-town artsy hipsters lost, at low points in life and realizing that they are not as special as they were raised to believe (a sad realization we millenals experience).  though i just realized that odile and jack are generation x and not y, because the story is set in 1999 (clinton's impeachment than acquittal played a part, which made me realized just how silly the world is, at the time i was too young to get it but i mean really it was just a blow job).  though as i read, there were a handful of things that felt too gen y hipsters for it to be the 90s, ie bike riding, ironic moustaches, and DIY street art (unless this was around then and I was too young to know it).  and i hate to be mean but maybe meno set it in the 90s to avoid it being a gen y manifesto but sadly that is what it was.  i mean both generations are screwed up so it's kinda like same diff.

and just like "(500) days of summer", though it may feel like it, "office girl" is not a love story.  well it is in the sense that their relationship is the push they need to get on with their lives.  both leave the relationship better people so in that sense it is a love story.  and yes there is a "lets just keep things casual" conflict just like summer and tom. also the introduction of odile and jack totally reminded me of how tom and summer were introduced in the film.  at one point, as i read a description, i totally saw the scenes in the film when tom talks about all the things he loves about summer.  another things that reminded me of (500) was when it listed out odile's exes or boys that fell in love with her, it was like when summer talked about her exes.  (it also it totally reminded me of rob listing out his lost loves in "high fidelity".) also there is a moment where jack and odile get pancakes like summer and tom but they don't break up.  ans in meno's defense is not completely  (500) days but (500) days-esque.

however it was not the romance that made me fall for this book.  it was their artsy-ness (this is when it started to feel like "beginners").  odile is an art school drop out and jack is an art school graduate and both produce art that i would love.  for example, jack had a comic strip about a boy in love with a log, it sounded so cute, i wished it existed in real life.  jack also recorded sounds he heard while biking around chicago.  some of his sounds were not even sounds, for example, "green glove in the snow" or "girls reading books on the subway".  though is favorites were quite beautiful:  a woman singing "look for the silver lining", a weather man fescue ricin clouds as "gray cumulus, just like ponies jumping over a fence" and a woman saying "i ate a plum and thought of you". jack thought the later was "so perfect in it's briefness, in its sense of longing" and i couldn't agree with him more.

odile is more of a guerrilla artist.  when we first met her she is tagging anything with her silver sharpie (pretty much tits and penis) but she starts this movement with jack.  it i totally wanted to be a member of their movement, named after alphonse f., the first true artist odile met.  she went to elementary school with that drew pictures of naked ladies and tried to sell them to classmates.  

here is a list of their art:

-wore ski masks and left a ton of silver balloons in a elevator

-rode on the bus dressed like ghosts

-made a banner that says "you will forget this by tomorrow-alphonse f. (which reminded me of miranda july's art book)

-bought three parakeets and released them in a school yard

-put a portrait of alphonse f. in the mca between a warhol and cindy sherman (very banksy)

-reenacted "jaws" on the subway

-create a zine

sounds like a blast right?

and to top it all off, the book at illustrations and pictures for the art!  there was even the zine in the middle of it!

this last one is from a party jack went to where people dressed like building.  

i loved all of the little random illustrations and photos in this book.

i mean this book was the epitome of hipsterness which is why i loved it.  it's nice to be able connect with characters who are artsy and angsty, just like you.  (though i am not a hipster).  it was good, i mean its probably already in the works for a movie or an MTV series based on it.

one last thing.  this book taught me the story behind the song "save the last dance for me".  i always thought it was sad because it seemed like the guy was okay with his girl being a flirt and reminding her like flirt all you want but you are coming. home with me.  but that is not the case!  jack's stepdad, david, shared that the songwriter doc pomus at polio and at this wedding he can't dance but watched everyone else dance with his bridge.  "so he writes this song to tell her, you go have your fun but remember who's taking you home." pretty sweet, huh?

oh and one final thing, i read meno's other book "hairstyles of the damned" in high school.  like i think i still have it.  I didn't enjoy it that much back then but plan on giving it another chance.

superzelda: the graphic life of zelda fitzgerald. tiziana lo porto and danielle marotta.

i was so excited when i read about "superzelda", a graphic (love the pun!) novel about zelda fitzgerald! it had to be amazing!  and it was!! 

this is the perfect introduction to people new to the amazing yet tragic mess that is zelda fitzgerald.  it covers all of her life. the high points when she was the world's favorite flapper to the low points with her mental illness.  essentially it is pretty much is an illustrated cliffnotes for nancy milford's "zelda" but i mean what is wrong with illustrated cliffnotes?

i will say that i did learn one new thing from this graphic novel.  i knew scott wasn't allowed burial in a catholic cemetery but didn't know that decision was reversed and he and zelda were moved.

here were my favorite parts:

i always admired zelda for being her own person.

their partying was notorious but love the inclusion of josephine baker in his drawing.

this was a recipe harper and brothers included in "recipes of famous women".  zelda was kind of cook!

the perfect ending to this book.

if you love zelda fitzgerald, you should check this out.  her life was quite amazing and this is a good overview of it.

call me zelda. erika robuck. (121)

yes, another zelda book, though "call me zelda" is not directly about zelda fitzgerald but told from the perspective of her fictional nurse, anna howard.  the novel is set during zelda's time at phipps psychiatric clinic and though based on real incidents in zelda's life, it is about anna's life which was affected my zelda.

i came across the novel while googling about other zelda books so i didn't know anything about it until i read the first page.   i have to admit that i was a little disappointed that the protagonist was nurse anna and not zelda.  i am not a fan of fan fiction and this is kinda borderline fan fiction (though it did open my mind, i am going to give "the paris wife" a chance, though the fact that i found it for $1 was a huge factor as well).  i guess it's more like historical fiction, but regardless of what you call it, i wasn't a fan.  i found it overly sentimental, predictable and unimaginative.  

at first i thought it was cute how anna was the one that suggested zelda write for the doctors and also sent off zelda's manuscript to scribner's (both which occurred in real life).  however, other than that i didn't approve of anne's relationship with zelda.  it was extremely unprofessional and she crossed a handful of lines that could have been detrimental to zelda's recovery.  instead of being a nurse, anna turned into a sad schoolgirl trying her best to befriend the popular girl.  i mean she told her parents the instant she could about zelda being institutionalized (isn't there some client confidentially thing?).  she also became obsessed with zelda which was not healthy for either one of them.

and i hate to sound soulless but i felt that anna's missing-in-action husband and dead daughter was too cliché of a storyline.  though we saw the world via anna's eyes we never got into the inner workings of her soul.  i mean her husband and daughter were constantly brought up but simply as a way to know anna gave up on life but never complex enough to know what she truly struggled with it.

i also disliked how anna's life cleaned up so nicely.  i mean really, her husband's best friend shows up and they fall in love, but wait her husband might have been found . . . but no he didn't, now she can marry his best friend and not feel like she is betraying him!  all is well in the world.

last but not least, i absolutely abhorred anna's journey to find zelda's journals.  i have no idea why the author decided to focus on these journals, i doubt it would have been a wish of the real zelda to have them back.  i know real life zelda had issues with scott using them in his novels but wouldn't having them physically add to her anguish rather than relieve it?  and then finding them in the basement of their connecticut home?!?! really????  again, way too tidy of an ending.

another issue i had was the use of the polaroid camera on anna's journey.  she explained that her husband paid a fortune for it, but how could they afford that and not daily phone calls? in addition to that, i am sure the camera cost a lot but i can only imagine how much the film cost.  the cost of film made me think that anna's scrapbook for zelda was extremely unlikely.

the only thing that did genuinely shocked and impressed me was that the author included zelda's death in the novel.  but i will be judgey and say oh what a blessing that anna got the journals to zelda in enough time to give her peace before her death.

i hate to be a book snob but this was the worse of the zelda novels i have recently read.  everything in the story cleaned up too nicely, i can't handle movies with the hollywood endings, and the same goes for my novels.

one was johnny. (119) and chicken soup with rice. (120) maurice sendak.

when i took brother bear to the library for the story and craft time, i found these two books in the little little kids section. 

of course, after seeing the documentary "tell them anything you want" (watch it and read that post!), i had a little bit more insight on his drawings.

but first, how sweet is this dedication to his partner?

"one was johnny" is a counting book.  at first, johnny was all alone and each page, a new random visitor barges in: a rat, a cat, a dog, a mail monkey (a monkey that delivers mail) and even a robber.  yes a robber.

but johnny handled the situation with a threat that is a bit of a trend in sendak books:

yup, he threatened to eat them like a "wild thing" and it works!  they all leave.  and also justice is served with their leaving, ie the tiger took the robber to jail.

also the dog, as i learned in the doc, is a dog that shows up in a lot of sendak's books.  the dog is based on his real life dog jennie.  here she is:

the second book was:

"chicken soup with rice" it is a book of months and each month the child discovered another way of enjoying actual chicken soup or the idea of chicken soup.  

my favorites were february because he dined with his snowman:

and august because the child turned into a pot:

and jennie was in this one too.

p.s.  seriously parents teach your kids to not draw in library books!!!!

beautiful fools. r. clifton spargo. (118)

after reading "z", i discovered a handful of novels dedicated to zelda fitzgerald have been published recently (i am assuming) to run on the coat tails of baz lurhman's "the great gatsby" release.  and of course, adoring zelda as i do, decided to read all of them.  the second one i chose was "beautiful fools" by r. clifton spargo.

"beautiful fools" as it said on the cover is about the last of affair of zelda and f. scott fitzgerald.  as i learned in "zelda", the fitzgeralds took a trip to cuba  (after zelda did not go on the institution's cuba trip),and  though they did not know it at the time, it would be their last trip together.  this novel is a fictional tale about that trip, though the complexity of their relationship was based on truth.  and of course the title, is from "the great gatsby", words scott took from zelda's lips at scottie's birth and put them on daisy's lips.  and though it was zelda's wish for scottie to be a beautiful fool, it's safe to say that both zelda and scott were beautiful fools so the title is appropriate.

the trip to cuba is disastrous from the start.  zelda saw it as an opportunity to save their marriage by proving she was well, while scott used it as a means to escape his life in hollywood and his mistress.  spargo created a handful of incidents that exasperated their already strained relationship.  scott meets some shady characters and puts zelda and him in some sticky situations, i won't spoil it but lets just say there is a barroom brawl and some cockfightings. but zelda does create a handful of awkward situations herself, including a trip to a clairvoyant.  however, regardless of the events that occur, scott and zelda would have had a troubling time regardless due to their relationship woe.

as i discussed in the post for "z", fowler discussed how people are divided into camp zelda or camp scott, however, spargo did an excellent job in "beautiful fools" of demonstrating how scott and zelda were both guilty of ruining their marriage.  as i read i was frustrated with zelda's neediness and erratic behavior and scott's drinking and money-wasting.  they were both on self-destruct mode.  as wonderful as they started off in their youth, they both had an equal hand in their demise.  which again reminded me of my very own zelda-scott relationship, i once had a disastrous trip to mexico with the same friend i talked about in the "zelda" post.  just like scott and zelda, drinking added a lot of drama to our trip. after the trip, we both spent time convincing ourself the other was responsible for the drama that occurred but looking back, we really were both to blame.  oddly enough, we did manage to scrape our trip together by putting aside our differences.  and even though i though it was the end of our friendship, it survived it.  (though only for a year or so after).  but even with all of its drama, i can look back at the trip and not be bitter and recognize it as experience that occurred at no fault of anyone but just the way life went.

the trip ends with zelda (though thought of as fragile because of her condition) taking charge and taking care of scott and the mess he gets them in.  and i guess that is what i admired about the fitzgeralds in this story. they were not perfect but they managed because they truly loved each other.  as scott in the novel said, "she was the only thing he truly loved in the world but his love was twisted and wounded  and he could never again make it a simple, straightforward thing."  and that is what happens with love sometimes, it gets injured but does not seize to exist.  and at our lowest points that love will be strong enough to help us endure.

i enjoyed "beautiful fools" more than "z" because spargo is the better writer.  while fowler's zelda felt forced, spargo's zelda was as colorful as i assumed the real one would be based on all i have read so far.  my only critique is that i got tired of all the war and fascist talk but i mean those topics were probably on the tips of everyone tongues during that time.  but all in all, a novel, i would assume scott and zelda would not be ashamed to appear in.

my brother's book. maurice sendak. (117)

after seeing maurice sendak discuss his love for his older brother jack and his  desire to create a simple but definitive book in the documentary, "tell them anything you want", i couldn't help but be emotional when i read this book.  i was just happy that sendak was able to create a book to honor his brother.

i have never read shakespeare's "winter's tale" so did get any of the allusions, but luckily the forward explained it to me.

the book is the story of two brothers who are separated when a star collides with earth.  one brother, jack (the name of maurice's brother) is sent to a world of ice and is frozen.  the other brother guy tumbles into the middle of the earth where he is captured by a bear.  he tells the bear a riddle which can not be solved and is released.  he then finds his brother, jack who has become a tree.  they embrace and are together again.  

the story is short and sweet but the true story behind it is which is what makes it great.  i do not believe in an afterlife but i do believe in it for my family.  i think heaven is too complicated to truly exist. i mean what age will you be? who will you be with? what will you do? and what about all the gray areas in life, i know religious people who don't deserve to be in heaven and sinners who do not deserve hell.  life is too complex for heaven to exist.  the only reason i would want an afterlife to exist was if i could be my family.  

i was raised mormon and one of their central beliefs is that families should be sealed in the temple so they can be together in heaven. growing up i never questioned this but as an adult, i saw how illogical it was.  we do not chose the family we are born into and they are the ones that install in us morals and help us become who we are.  due to this, i could not understand why god would separate families when we die.  it seems cruel, god sticks us with people on earth, we love them unconditionally and purposely separates us when we die unless we are sealed in a mormon temple.  i could and can not believe in a god that is so demanding and unreasonably cruel.  my loss of faith in this mormon doctrine came when my grandfather passed away.  my grandfather was muslim and very stubborn so though a baptism for the dead was probably performed for him, i doubt he would agree to convert in the spiritual world.  as a result i could not believe in a doctrine that would not allow me to be with my grandfather based on faith and not love.  i would rather be with my grandfather in heaven than with god.  at the risk of sounding blasphemous, i know what my grandfather did for me in my life versus what god theoretically did for me.  i know no one should be before god, but if i had to choose between a family member and god, i would go with the family member.  i would not follow the example of abraham and would have never put issac on the alter.  

due to this, i appreciate how it is guy's love for his brother that reunites them.  love can overcome all and like captain and tennille sang "will keep us together".

also the artwork is lovely:

bumble-ardy. maurice sendak. (116)

i requested "bumble-ardy" thanks to that google doodle for maurice sendak's birthday and after reading realized google should have had bumble-ardy as the doodle because he shares the same birthday as maurice sendak!

so i remember reading about "bumble-ardy" because it has a dark beginning and a bunch of closed minded parents were upset by the prologue.  and of course, the prologue was my favorite!  so in the prologue, we learn that poor bumble-ardy had never had a birthday party, until he was nine.  the reason being that his family did not allow for fun so he never had a birthday party.  however, his family got fat and then slaughtered.  this is where people get upset but i mean they are pigs and we do slaughter them, so not sure why people were in an uproar.  also parents die, it sad but it's true.

back to the story. bumble-ardy finally had a party because his aunt (who adopted him) celebrated his birthday and bumble-ardy felt he could have a party. 

when his aunt went to work, bumble-ardy threw a party.  it got wild and out of control.  

his aunt came home and of course is outrage.  i mean check out her threat below:

and that was to pigs!! talk about harsh!

but just like life, though his aunt was angry, it did not mean that she stopped loving bumble-ardy.  i bet a lot of kids sadly think that their parents love them less when they make mistakes but their love doesn't falter, as seen below:

another story of sedak's that lets us know our family will loves us regardless of how reckless we can get in life.

tell them anything you want: a portrait of maurice sendak by lance bangs and spike jonze.

on june 10th, google celebrated maurice sendak's birthday with this doodle:

adorable right? when i clicked on the doodle, it brought up a bunch of sendak info and i realized i never watched the documentary lance bangs and spike jonze made about him.  so of course i requested it from the library.

i didn't see "tell them" when it first came out because i didn't have hbo but i regret waiting this long to watch it. it was a beautiful yet sad documentary and my heart is now filled with even more love for maurice sendak.

as a kid i was always drawn to "where the wild things are" because of the illustrations but it wasn't until i was an adult that i became emotionally attached to the the book.  it wasn't until 2009, when i heard about spike jonze's film adaption of "where the wild things are", and i reread the book, did i finally identify with max.  i wrote a blog post about it, which your can read here: where the wild things are.

 

this emotional attachment to "where the wild things are" mixed with the honesty of sendak and then soundtracked by karen o (like the the movie) resulted in me crying throughout most of this documentary.  i just wanted to love sendak and make him feel loved, he has brought so much joy into the world with his stories yet he doesn't realize it (when jonze tells him this in the doc, he admits he spoiled).  maurice also suffered so much in life that the darkness of his books came to light.

i loved all of the stories maurice shared.  i will highlight some of my favorite parts but if you haven't seen the documentary, stop here.  go watch it and enjoy it and then come back to read my blog.  

(start here again)

 

here are my favorite stories:

the tale of his parents attempting to abort him and constantly telling him about it was sad but like he said it was different time.  they were not being cruel but honest.  children are a financial burden.  i always saw myself having at least four but now that i am older, it might be only one.  (i am also getting too old to have multiple kids)

when discussing his parents at a different time in the documentary, maurice made a very important point, "having children requires talent."  people have children but are not prepared to raise them. especially today, people are still children themselves and having kids.  as maurice said, raising kids is like an art.  i have always been extremely grateful that my grandmother raised me because she knew how to raise kids.  it was not simply because she had raised her own kids but grandma bea had also gone back to school to become a teacher when she was in her fifties.  my uncle boon always jokes that her kids got spanked but the grandkids didn't because grandma learned about child development.  i always tell people i had the best childhood and i know it's because of grandma bea's experience as a preschool teacher.  she provided a home in which we learned the importance of education in addition to feeling loved and valued.  i did well in school and was a well behaved child because of my grandma.  i consider myself a lucky one because not all parents know good parenting.  

maurice did not speak highly of his parents but it was sweet to hear him talk about his older siblings.  he truly loved them and they influenced all he accomplished in his life.  his brother jack was the one that taught him how to draw and they created these wonderful toys together.  when he talked about his brother, it brought me to tears.  i know i am not the perfect sibling but hope that i have been a good influence on my brother and sister.

though the story had happy memories, it was also filled with sad stories.  one story that made me sad was maurice's struggle with his homosexuality.  he did live in a different time but he spent most of his life wishing he wasn't gay.  jonze asked him when he stopped beating himself up about being gay and he said never.  when he made the point that he was worried about his career it made even more sense.  people would not be accepting of a gay children's book writer, but luckily his books were viewed on his skill versus his sexuality.  thought he felt like he missed out on a lot of fun, he did find love.  

another sad story was the one about the lindbergh baby.  the story in itself is devastating but the story of a young maurice seeing a photo of the mutilated baby's body in a newspaper was terrifying.  it was even more horrible considering that his family did not believe him and how it scarred him for life (he became obsessed with the case).  i haven't read "outside over there" (i have heard him allude to it in interviews) but saw it as a form of therapy for him to come to terms with the image that was etched into his mind.  and again he brings up another sad fact about childhood, how children probably see horrible images like this but never tell anyone.  it reminded me of how "world weekly news" traumatized me as a child. i mean why was that newspaper allowed near the grocery checkout stand within eyeview of kids shopping with their parents!  thanks to "world weekly news" i was scared that my mother was going to be kidnapped by the werewolf man and that if i swallowed a watermelon seed, a plant would grow in my belly (there was an edition that featured a kid with a vine coming through his belly button).  also bat boy was the most frightening picture ever.  i remember seeing these images on a family trip to san diego and though i was frightened, i never told anyone.  just like sendak shared, kids do experience scary things all the time but how many times do they share it with someone else? i mean i never discussed my "world weekly news" fear until now.  childhood can be scary.

when spike jonze's film adaptation of "where the wild things are" first came out i remember reading a critique calling it dark and scary.  jonze made the point that childhood is dark and scary but no one every really discusses it.  sendak's books show how childhood can be dark because he is all about honesty.  he makes the important point that he was often told he couldn't say this or that to kids but he believed that you can tell kids anything you want, as long as it is honest.  and this is why "where the wild things are" is so great.  it demonstrated how parents and children do act.  we fight and we argue and we have moments of anger but it's all temporary because at the end of all it, our love for each other is tolerant and forgiving.  it is important for kids to know that their parents love is boundless and that we are all human and will make mistakes but they can always count on their family love.

i have not read all of maurice sendak's catalogue but plan on reading them all. he mentioned specific books that i have yet to read and so i put in some requests. sendak was an amazing person and author and i am sure his books will teach me invaluable lessons about life.

i really loved this documentary. if you have not seen it please see it as soon as possible.  your heart will be happier after watching it.

the last tycoon. f. scott fitzgerald. (115)

i have read all of f. scott's fitzgerald's novels with the exception of "the last tycoon".  i skipped it because it was published posthumously.  novels that are published after an author's death seem incomplete to me.  sure there are notes and outlines that can help complete it but what if while the author was writing a new idea struck him/her than those outlines and notes would be pointless.  a novel should have the author's stamp of approval before it is released to the world.  

however, after reading nancy milford's "zelda", i decided to give in and read "the last tycoon".  while reading "zelda" i realized that all of fitzgerald's novels are pretty much autobiographies so i needed to read "the last tycoon" to get a glimpse into his life when he was in hollywood and zelda was institutionalized.  also milford mentioned that the love interest in "the last tycoon" was not based on zelda but fitzgerald's mistress at the time, sheliah graham.  due to this i felt i had to read fitzgerald take on his affair.  in addition to this it would also help give some background for my next fitzgerald read "beautiful fools" a novel by r. clifton spargo about a trip scott and zelda.  the trip takes place during the time period scott was living in hollywood and graham was his mistress.

though zelda did not know of graham, she knew kathleen was not modeled after her, as all of the previous fitzgerald female characters had been.  milford explained in her book that zelda did not like the heroine of "the last tycoon", kathleen.  and maybe all of my recent zelda reading has made me biased but i also did not like kathleen.  kathleen was unworthy of stahr's love, there was no piazza or wow to her other than her resemblance to his dead wife, minna.  oddly enough, milford explained that graham had a striking resemblance to zelda.  (i will expand on this in a bit).  there seemed to be no real chemistry between stahr and kathleen other than a physical attraction.  also kathleen seemed to have no backbone or heart, she didn't read as mysterious but a coward.   i didn't like how she kept her engagement a secret from stahr. i felt like  she played with stahr's emotions because she liked being in proximity to power.  the narrator explained how kathleen was "un-hollywood" but she still played games like she was part of the hollywood set.  kathleen was also a bit of a bore, she had relationships with interesting men but was not interesting herself.  maybe fitzgerald would have developed her more but as kathleen is, she does not deserve to be the object of stahr's affection.

however, if you read "the last tycoon" as autobiographical than the lack of actual chemistry between stahr and kathleen is a good thing because it demonstrated that fitzgerald's love for graham was superficial.  in the novel, stahr is a widow and his initial attraction to kathleen is because she looked like his dead wife.  as mentioned before, in real life graham looked like zelda, though zelda was not dead, her institutionalization must have felt like her death to fitzgerald.  stahr does not seem to be in love with kathleen but rather with the sentiment that she arose in him based one her likeness to minna.  it must have been the same for fitzgerald and graham.  as shown in milford's book, zelda's institualtionalizations was a burden on fitzgerald but he still loved her.  and though i do not condone fitzgerald's infidelity, i do not think he really loved graham.  i think she was a placeholder for his actual feelings for zelda, just as kathleen was for minna.  fitzgerald like stahr was not content with life and grasped onto a girl to hopefully find fulfillment.  even more odd, fitzgerald died without resolving his novel just like stahr died so we never get a resolution on his affair with kathleen.  however, i am going to say that stahr and kathleen's relationship would have amounted to nothing because like zelda for scott, minna was stahr's true love.  (i can and will admit that my interpretation of stahr's superficial love for kathleen is my need to have scott and zelda be the true love i think of it as, i mean i know they were a mess but there was something magical about them.)

"the last tycoon" also focused on hollywood and it's politics, not only in terms of the country (their is talk anout who is "red") but also within studios.  it was interesting to read about it though i didn't find it completely enthralling.  i also liked the narrator, cecilia, she reminded me of nick from "the great gatsby" both have an endearing naivety to them though cecilia does have a bit of a conniving streak.  

i also enjoyed reading the notes f. scott fitzgerald left for it.  it's amazing to see all the prework that goes into writing a novel.  i was shocked that he gave himself a word limit.  he wanted to keep it short like "the great gatsby".  i also loved how his characters have such depth backgrounds though we might not be shown all of it, fitzgerald at least saw them as a complete person.

i do wish fitzgerald was able to finish it.  i am not sure it would have been on the level of "the great gatsby" but i think not would have made for an excellent film.  one was made in 62, i think, i want to see it but it probably would have been better if it was based on a completed novel,