Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah Bernhardt fascinates me for many reasons: her admission to having to be ridiculous at times, her seriousness about her creative endeavors, her ability to ‘take’ great photos, her love of story-telling, her intrigue with death, and the fact that her son was the great love of her life. 

Today Diane Rehm had a rebroadcast of a great show on Robert Gottlieb’s biography of this woman who is said to be the greatest actress of all time.

Barry Lopez

I recently returned, part-time, to my old job of digital mapping. It’s a leisurely job where I can work on maps all day while being able to listen attentively to short stories and still get the job done. I’ve always liked maps, and I’m usually happy when I have a short story or good music to listen to, so it works out.   However to say that my mapping work “pales” in comparison to the mapping work in this story would be a gross understatement and it’s actually the antithesis of the type of mapping described in it.

The story I listened to today from my podcasts of Selected Shorts was Barry Lopez‘s “The Mappist,” and it’s one of the best stories I’ve heard yet.  Elegant, beautifully written, and meaningful at the same time. 

It makes me wish I had a project as noble as one of the character’s in the story and makes me question (once again) my own infatuation with technology.

Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are has always been one of my favorite books.  In fact, I even find myself watching the children’s TV show “Little Bear” (based on Sendak’s Little Bear) every now and then, even though my daughter grew out of the show years ago.

The playful (and wild) spirit as well as the art and craftiness of Sendak’s works are what attracts me the most, and while the movie did retain some of that look, feel, and craftiness (which was my favorite part of the movie), it did not have any of the playfulness that Sendak’s book had.  Rather, the wild things were morose, lackadasical, mumbly, and just plain whiny throughout the entire movie.  And that’s where the movie goes very wrong, in the characters’ desperate attempts to shove their sadness and loneliness in your face with every line, they never actually pull you in to their characters, but rather leave you wishing they’d take their overdramatic emotions off of their furry sleeves.

With enough hipster names for ten movies, including Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich and Adaptation), Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius), and actors Forest Whitaker, James Gandolfini, Catherine O’Hara, Max Records (of DCFC video fame), Catherine Keener, and Mark Ruffalo among others, it had the ingredients of a must-see yet doomed to fail movie from the start.  Well I had to see it, especially after seeing that amazing trailer with Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” playing with the wild scenes.  (And where is that Arcade Fire tune now that the movie’s out, I ask you??)

For me, it would have been better to almost make the whole movie more of a music video of sorts, since they pretty much had the look and feel, and had some really beautiful scenes like the crafted village scene which was quite magical. But sadly, the characters and dialogue left very much to be desired.

So I went to order it; only I totally fell for the free shipping ploy.  I ordered one, then saw that if I ordered only around $12 more, I’d get the free shipping.  So naturally I ordered the second book in the series… only it was like ten dollars so I still had $2 to spend.  What the hell, may as well order the third one.  Only by this point, I had the entire series except for the last book, which everyone in the reviews said was awesome, sitting in my cart.

What choice did I have but to order the whole damn series?!?   This better be good…