A Walk Across the Sun

I read an absolutely wonderful book last week.  It was entertaining, had well-developed characters, a very realistic plot, was well-written, and absolutely terrifying.  I couldn't put it down.  The book is called A Walk Across the Sun, by Corban Addison.

Very Brief Synopsis

The book details the lives of two sisters who are the only survivors in their family of a tsunami that sweeps the Indian coastal town where they lived. Ahalya is 17 and Sita is 15.  Alone and unworldly, they accept help getting to their boarding school convent from a man who knew their father and who unknowingly leaves them in the hands of an unscrupulous taxi driver who sells them into human slavery.  On the other side of the world, a burned-out lawyer, Thomas Clarke, has discovered that his marriage to his Indian wife is finished and so is his career, possibly.  He takes a sabbatical in India with an NGO that prosecutes human traffickers and tries to help the survivors and revive his marriage.  The trek takes us from Bombay/Mumbai to Paris, to New York City to Atlanta and back.  (Human trafficking is, after all, universal.)  The book is filled with realistic detail, and as the author's epilogue tells us, the research has been prodigious - but it never becomes gruesome in detail.

N.Y. Times - Nicholas Kristof's "Where Pimps Peddle Their Goods"

I have not stopped thinking or reading about the book since I finished it.  This morning (3/18/12) in The New York Times,  in the Sunday Review section, Nicholas D. Kristof had an article called: "Where Pimps Peddle Their Goods."  You should read it.  But, in case you don't, be aware that according to Kristof, web sites like Backpage.com "...help find buyers for enslaved young girls."  According to Kristoff, Backpage.com accounts "...for 70% of prostitution advertising among five web sites..." that carry such ads, "...earning more than $22 million annually."   And guess who owns Backpage.com?  Village Voice Media.  And attorneys general from 48 states have written a letter to them asking them to "get out of the flesh trade."

There is an online petition with 94,000 signatures at www.change.org which you can sign asking Village Voice Media to stop taking prostitution ads.    According to Kristof's article, the lawyer for Village Voice media, Liz McDougall, stated that "it is 'shortsighted, ill-informed and counterproductive' to focus on Backpage when many other Web sites are also involved..."   Craigslist has already stopped taking such ads in 2010. Advertisers deserted Rush Limbaugh in droves for his despicable and demeaning remarks about women.  Perhaps advertisers should feel the same about anyone making millions off the backs of enslaved women.  

Other Resources

If you are concerned about young women all over the world who are not voluntarily offering their bodies, who are kidnapped, drugged, beaten, and emotionally and physically enslaved on a daily basis, you can also check out these sites suggested by Addison:
www.polarisproject.org
www.sharedhope.org
thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com

Books the author mentioned in his epilogue are:  A Crime So Monstrous, The Natashas, Disposable People, Desire, Demand and the Commerce of Sex. Films: At the End of Slavery, and Born into Brothels.

Realistically, as long as there are willing buyers, there will always be a market for captives of unscrupulous, heinous men and women who sell  innocent women and young girls into sex slavery. But we can try to make a difference!  

I hope you will give the problem some thought and lend your name to petitions and perhaps give of your time and or money to some of the organizations in the trenches.  Write to Village Voice media.  www.villagevoicemedia.com

Read A Walk Across the Sun.      www.amazon.com

We can be better global citizens.

Leave the Departed Alone Already

Sorry to Say… (And sorry if it sounds disrespectful)

Thinking about the middle book of that trilogy I recently wrote about: The Dead and The Gone…..

is there no rest for poor Whitney Huston?  I swear if I hear “And I – e-i-e-i-e-i will always love you-oo-oo-oo-oo…” one more time, I am going to pull the plug on the TV (or worse). 

Do TV producers have such a dearth of information about the world that we have been bombarded daily since the poor Ms. Huston departed? 

Despite her enormous talent, she was a soul consumed by success and drugs and she left a daughter alone and inconsolable.  She follows in the footsteps of others who have succumbed to their talent and success: Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger, Marilyn Monroe, John Belushi, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Judy Garland and those whose struggles continue – Demi Moore, Lindsey Lohan,   Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Robert Downey, Jr. and the mega-meltdown of Charlie Sheen. 

Where are their families?  Their producers?  Their friends? Their “people”? Who are the prescribing doctors?  Are they all just on the gravy train?

To the TV and magazine producers/editors:  Stop glorifying! and for heaven’s sake:  MOVE ON!

If you are still dying for more info, simply tune into Extra and Entertainment Tonight or their cable channels.  In fact, maybe I should start a new cable channel -- Horrible Deaths and Hollywood’s Mess (HDHM-TV) or how about a show called "Train Wrecks of Hollywood"?  "Dysfuntion Compunction"? or "Save Me From Fame and Fortune"? Not to worry – no one's going to have to rescue me any time soon. 

 ....And I – e-i-e-i-e-i will always love you-oo-oo-oo-oo… .

A Novel - 

I subscribe to many Amazon newsletters and lately I’ve noticed a trend in novel titles.  So many seem to have the words "A Novel" in the title.  What’s that all about?  One recent email from Amazon listed 28 books and 22 of them had “A Novel” in the title.  From their recent Spring Reading list:

At Last: A Novel

Norumbega Park: A Novel

Half Blood Blues: A Novel

The Cove: A Novel

Five Bells: A Novel

Iago: A Novel

22 Britannia Road: A Novel

In Search of Lucy: A Novel

By Blood: A Novel

And from an email today --

Delicacy: A Novel

I’ve Got Your Number: A Novel

The Violets of March: A Novel

 Have editors and authors have run out titles?  I’m trying to figure out what the point is – perhaps in the case of In Search of Lucy, someone might think it was a non-fiction account of the American/French archaeological expedition that found Lucy (fossil find AL288-1), so to let the reader know that it is fiction, the description   “: A Novel” serves a real purpose. Otherwise, why?  

I suggest a new rule for fiction titles:  You can’t use the words A Novel in the title if it actually is a novel.

Speaking of novels, I recently breezed through a young adult trilogy by Susan Beth Pfeffer: Life As We Knew It, The Dead and The Gone, and The World We Live In.  They were entertaining, if slightly stereotypical, disaster/survival stories (heavy on teen angst and soft on earth science) about a meteorite that knocks the moon out of its orbit bringing it so close to Earth that tsunamis, erupting volcanoes, ash-caused winters without sun, disease, and other bad things happen.   Without a doubt the best scene of all three books was in the first novel, a day after the moon gets close.  The protagonist and her little brother are in school, (Dad has a second wife and lives elsewhere) big brother Matt is at Cornell and trying to make his way home to Pennsylvania (spotty electricity, no cell reception, gas prices sky rocketing, planes grounded, etc.).  Mom and an old but dear neighbor go to the school, take the two kids out, and drive to the nearest supermarket.  Mom unloads a wad of cash that she took out of the bank (so fortuitous to have a wad of cash in your bank account), drives to the supermarket where they are charging $100 a cart.  “Tiger Mom” points to son – You get cat food and kitty litter, fill up the cart, put it in the van, and go back and get more. She gives similar assignments to the neighbor and her daughter: food, water, and so on – and thus the survivalist mentality begins. 

As I read this, I began to get a little worried about how I would react to such a scenario.  Would I have the presence of mind to get to the bank for cash, load up on food, over-the-counter medicines, batteries, water?  What else would matter in a disaster?  I began to search the web for survival sites and I found that for only $4,625 I could have 50 cases of tactical rations.  Each case contains 12 meals.  I guess that’s 50 weeks at almost two meals a day.  It has a shelf-life of 5 years, with a few exceptions like "cracker spread" – whatever that may be.  I would need one set for each member of my family, right?  We'd need more than a small wad of cash for that. Some sites sold self-heating meals, some warned that selling real military MREs is not legal and they might be spoiled or outdated, some talked about caloric values, some had payment plans of $150 a month, some had 50 cases of 12 for only $2,900 – but didn’t include dessert or side dishes.

So, as I said in my last blog… I guess I am what I read – but I have not ordered any MREs………….yet.

My Love-Hate Relationship with My Kindle

 Love It-Hate It

When I first read about the Kindle (technology-wise, that means in the Dark Ages), I thought I would never, ever get over the need to hold and smell a book.  And, if I am being honest, after years of usage, I still do miss several features about real books.  When I am reading non-fiction, I miss the ability to thumb back and forth very quickly and easily between chapters and sections.  I miss traditional notetaking in the margins.  Yes, yes, I know you can underline and write notes with Kindle, but when I get to my book club, I still come with a traditional tablet where I have written down my thoughts (and the location number on the Kindle).  Much faster and easier than trying to next page through my notes.

Of course, I also miss being able to really see maps and pictures, so if a book has a lot of those, I buy the actual book instead of the ebook.  How else to best see those wonderful illustrations “In Which A House is Built at Poor Corner for Eeyore” for example? I had to have a non-Kindle friend photocopy the maps of A Game of Thrones so I could locate Winterfell, The Wall, and King’s Landing while reading on my Kindle.

I love the ability to sample books at home (or anywhere, really) instead of vying for the three chairs in my nearby bookstore, which some people use as their personal library while they sit there all day reading through everything and then leaving a big pile of books on the floor!  Right now I have over 30 samples.  If I read about a book that even sounds remotely interesting, I simply download a free sample.  Sometimes it takes so long for me to get to my samples that I forget why I downloaded it in the first place!  Then I have to go back to Amazon and re-read about the book before I decide to invest any time.  I wonder what made me download Starship Trooper, Dr. Zhivago, Don Quixote, 1Q84, The Night Strangers, Nanjing Requiem, and Midnight Rising – all at the same time?  What could I have been thinking?  Drinking?

I recall the first time I really, really got into the whole Kindle experience.  I was home, sick, and watching daytime TV and every show and advertisement had something about the teen phenomenon Twilight.  They had the actors on, the author on, clips from the movie coming out, passages from the book being read, and, well, I was just so curious about the whole thing – so, from my sick bed I just turned my wireless on, searched for the book, and as their ads say, “In under a minute…” and there it was, Book 1.  It was childish, poorly written, really simplistic, and the minute I finished Book 1 (which did not take too long), I went right back on line and downloaded Book 2. 

People can no longer peruse my home library, thumb through books on my coffee table, glance at what I am reading in the airport or in waiting rooms – somehow that feels like a personal loss to me.  Where else to show off the broad and extremely quaint range of my reading habits?  I am what I read?

The Big Game

It’s here!  The day of THE BIG GAME.

               (Don’t you just love that? The NFL has taken these ordinary words “Super Bowl” and “Super Sunday” and made them registered trademarks of the NFL, so you can’t use them except for when they are legitimate “news” items or used in commentary, so they fall under the fair use doctrine, whatever that means.)*

*Warning: I am not an attorney or anyone who remotely has any training in copyright, trade marking, patenting, etc.  But I do love fine print!

It is a day of food, glorious food, and drink; a day that contributes heavily to America’s being, well... heavy. 

I imagine that all over this country, chickens (mostly the wings) and pigs (mostly the ribs) are telling those who have escaped harm that they are so lucky  - until next year.  Thousands have been sacrificed for our Big Game watching appetites.  Baked, broiled, BBQ’d, fried and grilled, basted, marinated, rubbed, battered, buttered, spicy, house on fire hot, cooled with a side of buttermilk ranch.  About the only no-no for today is steaming!

Of course, there are the odd-ball pizza lovers: deep-dish, thin-crust, filled crust, whole wheat crust, (no, I suppose that one is not for this BIG GAME-loving crowd), double cheese, double pepperoni, sausage, meatball, mushrooms, onions, peppers, and – hold the, pineapple, please.

There are bowls full of quaint and old-fashioned potato chips and pretzels, along with tortilla chips, tortilla bowls, blue corn tortillas, lime tortilla chips, nacho chips, lounging close to their pools of dip: seven-layer, guacamole, French onion,  black bean, hummus, and salsa.  Did I mention cheese?  Mozzarella, pepperjack, and Colby jack, Swiss, and cheddar? Fried, sliced, cubed, melted and shredded.

Don’t forget the drink station – Anheuser-Busch’s “Black Friday” – so to speak.   The STAR of the day:  BEER, BEER, BEER

TRIVIA or trivial: According to the Wikipedia article, “Budweiser”: In 1876, Adolphus Busch and his friend Carl Conrad, a liquor importer, developed a "Bohemian-style" lager, inspired after a trip to the region. Brewers in Bohemia (today's Czech Republic) generally named a beer after their town with the suffix "er." Beers produced in the town of Pilsen (today's Plzeň), for example, were called Pilsners. Busch and Conrad had visited another town, only 104 km (65 mi) south of Pilsen, also known for its breweries: Budweis (or Böhmisch Budweis, today's České Budějovice). Beer has been brewed in Budweis since it was founded as Budiwoyz by king Ottokar II of Bohemia in 1245. The name Budweiser is genitive, meaning "of Budweis."  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budweiser_(Anheuser-Busch)

There are also the lesser stars of the day: margaritas, tequila and lime, red wine, wine coolers, rum & coke, bloody Marys, martinis.  Take a pass on the Mimosas today, please.

Let the Super Bowl begin!  (So sue me, NFL)

Dear New York Times

Dear New York Times,

I need to cancel my Sunday subscription.  I am sick and tired of opening the pages of your Arts & Leisure pages and finding scintillating, titillating, stimulating offerings. I turn the two dozen or so pages and find myself in a drool over the variety of offerings in your city.  Mind you: I am not a New Yorker, a former New Yorker, a former-New-Yorker/part-time-returnee, or a New Yorker-wannabe. It’s just that in browsing your pages, I realized that there are so many artists below the age of 50!  This has been a cruel and somewhat bubble-bursting epiphany.  It’s not fair.  I have begun to feel like I have entered Madame Tussaud’s and someone has locked the doors - like a sad horror flick. 

Take, for example, the most recent ad in my local newspaper (It doesn't matter if it really was the most recent or not; it appears there every year anyway) for the performing arts center in my small county in Florida*:

 

I’ve begun to think it’s a trick.  You know, these wax figures actually live underneath the stage and are brought up at least once a year for a dust off with accompanying music suitably filtered to squelch hearing aid feedback. 

C’mon, Performing Arts Center, even if your audience is touchingly a lot like those wax figures, we can still enjoy fresh fruit and young acts!

        * And don't you go saying it's a Florida thing because all these wax figures appear all around the country!

The Garage

C’mon people!  You know I am a walker.  If you leave your garage doors open, I am going to gawk.

So, there’s Mr. Organized: There are hooks and shelves for everything.  Bikes are hung neatly on the wall. Hoses wrapped tightly and slung over a holder, ready to squirt anything that comes along.   Pesticides and bags of potting soil are on the shelves.  Plastic containers, neatly labeled are stacked, hiding mysterious contents.   A tool box sits next to that waiting for anything at all to break down.  The floor is pristine.   Where do they put the cars?

Did you know your neighbor is a hoarder? 

No cars are parked inside.  They sit in the driveway, ousted by boxes piled from floor to ceiling with who knows what.  There are rows upon rows of open crates and I spy a stainless steel toaster, some old planters, crutches, board games no longer played, a stack of newspapers (okay, multiple stacks), a pile of magazines, an actual store’s worth of old paint cans, paint dripping down the sides – white, cream, tan, brown, brick, and peacock blue?  Was that a mistake or intentional?  Where did you use that color?  There may be a fridge back by the door, but I am not sure.  It could really be anything.  Along the side, there is a carefully carved out path – a fire exit?  An emergency out?  Do you know this number?  1- 800 - Got JUNK?  Yes, you!  I mean you - DIAL NOW.

How about the garage that has a woodcutter’s bench and tools all hung up on peg boards?  Wood chips are scattered everywhere.  There are a few chairs around the bench as if the family members come to watch a show. 

Every now and then I pass a very clean garage with a car inside that is covered.  Wow.  The car must be super special to be both inside a garage and covered.  I’m dying to sneak a peek.  What if I get caught?  Were they the ones with the big-bark dog?  I walk by, just a little faster.

January 10th, 2012

Breaking News!

After a whirlwind night on December 24th, Santa has apparently suffered a severe setback.

And my neighbors have still not found the time to help him!

The MOVIES

Let's banish all movies about dads coping with dead moms/wives.

     Did you see The Descendents?  They are going to give George Clooney an Oscar (probably) for playing George Clooney, who runs around the block in docksiders or flip flops at a very fast clip, with a very earnest look on his face when he learns his wife (who is in the hospital, dying) has cheated on him.  I do not think Clooney smiled more than twice in the film or hugged the actresses playing his daughters more than once. (But then, being the proverbial Hollywood smarmy bachelor, who has never wed or had kids, this was quite a stretch for Clooney anyway. Maybe that's why he is mentioned for an Oscar?)  His expressions varied from stone-faced to slight wince, which I think was meant to be a smile.

In We Bought a Zoo, Matt Damon, at least, has more experience with fatherhood, but this movie, too, was boring, predictable, and l-o-n-g. At least it seemed long.  It's mantra:"Save the Tiger and let him go only when you are ready to say good-bye!" At least, there is no buzz about any awards.

Did you see the latest Mission Impossible?  I call it a stunt-a-thon movie.  Except for that wonderful theme song, the classy TV show getting out of tight places and pulling off an impossible mission using brains and convincing deception within a very tight timeframe, with a few high-tech gadgets, has evolved into a Tom Cruise hero - who also runs at a very fast clip with that strange marching band gait of his - pulling off stupid stunts that defy suspension of disbelief.  His facial range of expressions, too, was no better than Clooney's.  But, oh, that theme song was so worth two and a half hours of stunt, stunt, stunt, plot point, stunt, stunt, stunt, ad nauseum.

And the coming attractions featured aging stars in action hero roles that brought laughs to the audience:  Bruce Willis, for heaven's sake?  And Liam Neeson?  C'mon, Hollywood, let's get some guys who could actually be believable in these unbelievable roles.

Attention all you late 40-ish-50-something actors still vying to be your late 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s-something selves - it's over, pack it up, move on! Please... 



Cheese

I checked in on Sunday with my sister about her New Year's Eve Menu and she told me she had three of the most delicious cheeses ever.  She had spoken with the cheese sommelier at Wholefoods and took his recommendation.   But sommelier wasn't quite the right word and we struggled to come up with a word for a cheese expert.  Cheese head didn't do it because:

Enough said about Cheese heads.

Posts on Chowhound.com suggested: "affineur," "fromager," "Maitre Fromager,"   Really?

I think it's quite simple:  Cheese Whiz!! 

And I never did find out the names of those three cheeses because we laughed so hard.

Happy New Year, y'all