Mary Simses' "The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe" starts out great: a woman falls from the deck of the beach and almost drowns, saved by a handsome carpenter. Talk about meeting cute. You just know that they are destined for each other. But of course, there will be complications: The woman, Ellen Branford is already engaged to be married to Hayden Croft, a member of a family with political dynasty. So you and I both know where this is going, right? Simses is a much better writer than one who gives us obvious set-ups, though I wish there were more surprises. I know that Ellen could be a character who may not be as liked, but she loves the Great American Songbook, and that's just fine by me. This is a sweet, pleasant read, nothing more and nothing less.
So I go from reviewing one Matthew (McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club) to Matthew Morrison and his new Christmas EP, "A Classic Christmas." It's always nice to get a new release from Morrison, as I like his voice. I think I have said this before, but I think he has a "handsome" voice. It's hard to explain, and this is just a personal thing, but he has one of those voices where you hear it and you just know that the person possessing the voice is very good-looking. Well, just look at the album cover above and you can't deny that in this particular instance, my theory stands. He sings these classic songs very well, and you will do well playing these songs while trimming your tree. Produced by Phil Ramone, the album sounds great. I wish, though, that the arrangements were a little bit more adventurous. They showcase his voice well, and he successfully navigates these standards. "O Holy Night," sung with a choir, stirs, and I like the pairing of "I'll Be Home For Christmas" with "Meli Kalikimaka," where he gives the song a sort of surfer dude vibe. A good album to add to your Holiday collection.
After seeing "Dallas Buyer's Club," I had an uneasy feeling. I couldn't really pinpoint why I didn't enjoy the movie. It was an interesting story, and I kind of liked Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto's performances, but all in all, the movie fell flat for me. Then I remembered that a friend posted this article, an editorial from Huffington Post titled Not Buying Dallas Buyer's Club and it clicked why. Although it is pointed out in the movie that Ron Woodroff (McConaughey's character) got the buyer's club idea from a New York Times article, it just wasn't pointed out that there were a lot of people working towards the same goal. Yes, I know that this movie is about Woodroff, but I got this impression that he is one of a few people who was carrying on in the AIDS crusade when yes, I saw with my own eyes a lot of the AIDS activism in the early 90s. (I even once accidentally attended an ACT-UP meeting) But back to the movie: While I respect the fact that Hollywood is now embracing AIDS movies, I found the script to be predictable. You knew each turn the story would take, and Leto and Jennifer Garner's characters are thrown away to serve points in the story rather than enriching it. And yes, McConaughey gives a brave performance, but to me, it seems too calculated, as if he is begging for an Oscar. Leto fares better as the drag queen Rayon, but, again I felt it underwritten and weak. Garner annoyed the hell out of me - she had this expression in her face throughout the movie: you know, the one where she looks like she is scowling thinking of her next line. Perhaps I had high expectations. This got almost universally raves. I wanted to like it, but felt the film was hallow.
Sometimes you don't have to read a whole long book to tell a love story. Kaje Harper's novella tells of a sweet one between Jack and Sean. Jack is a college student in Iowa, and Sean is a townie. In the midst of a townie vs college student brawl, they meet, and later on fall in love. And of course, just like any story set in the past (this one is from 1981) you will get the usual hurdles: parent against one being gay, society distaste. I still feel that woman's touch in the handling of the story. I can almost always tell if a gay man is writing about a love story, as opposed to a woman. But this is harmless, and short enough to be worth a quick read.
This morning had cold temperatures, and I just wished I were in Hawaii. I wanted to be in a hammock by a tropical lanai, gazing at waterfalls, taking a dip in silky blue waters. Whenever I feel like this, I scent myself with either one of two perfumes: Kai ( which I review here ) or, as I did this morning, Histoires de Parfums 1804. This as one prominent note: pineapple. Before Creed's Aventus, there was this. I remember at the time I thought it was quite novel, and this is pineapple in the classiest way. I wish I had Aventus in my wardrobe to compare this with. I sampled Aventus and like it, but have to properly wear the scent to fully experience it. But back to 1804, the prominent pineapple note is front and center here, from the first spritz, and stays to the dry down. The initial burst of pineapple is joined by some peach, and a flower bouquet of rose, ylang ylang, and gardenia, and this rounds up the fragrance. That, I think is the beauty of this scent. The flowers frame the fruit, making it quite a unique fruity floral. As the perfume develops further, the pineapple is still prominent, but now some musk comes in, and the sweetness gets more weight, though it never gets dark. There's just a hint of patchouli that brings the earthiness here, making the tropical vibe even more authentic. Imagine picking the pineapples from dirt soil. The sillage is strong, and the longevity is like stealth. You have to have a bit of personality to pull this off, it's kind of loud and calls attention to itself. This is definitely not for everyone, but for the right person, this pineapple is super juicy!
Vanessa Curtis' "Zelah Green,"book tackles a common disease: OCD, as experienced by a teenager of the same name. It's a short narrative about a teenager suffering from the disease which manifested after she loses her mother. While this is a serious issue, Green's hand is light, and most of the novel is quite funny. It's a cute way of looking at something that affects a lot of people in some way or another, I found it never really resolved the issue for her character. At the end of the book, things are till kind of up in the air. Then I find out that there is a #2 in the series, and I hope things are resolved better there.
A new Barbra Streisand record is always a cause for celebration. Every time a record of hers drops, I have always been there, always first in line to get it. So again with glee I welcome her new disc, "Back To Brooklyn," a live album from her last "comeback" concert, her reunion with Brooklyn, where she grew up. But let's get the worst thing out : her voice isn't what it used to be (and I always say, but whose is?) but I think she is more comfortable with this voice now, and is more at peace with it. At 70, its still a strong instrument, though slightly muddled. My best description of it: it is like listening to her old records in a bad radio signal. But yes, it is still "like buttah." There's still an intimacy in it that feels like she is singing just to you. I think that's what makes even her biggest stadium dates sound just as personal. Die hard fans will froth at this album. It has all her greatest hits: People, The Way We Were, Evergreen. I don't know why, but there's always something new that I hear even if I have heard these songs from her millions of times. She always makes it sound like it's a different scene you are listening to, a different character essaying the song. I love that she draws from the songbooks also, from old standards like "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" (in the same arrangement from her early album) and "What'll I Do/My Funny Valentine" She also sings modern standards like the Bergman medley and a tribute to Marvin Hamlisch. There are a lo tof new here: she sings "Lost Inside Of You," a lesser known gem from her discography, "Didn't We," and a sublime "Make Our Garden Grow." And in my mind I always imagined and hoped that one day she would sing "How Deep Is The Ocean," (My favorite song of all time) and she does that here in a duet with her son, Jason Gould. I could go on and on gushing, and this will sound like a love letter from a fan, but I cannot lie. Yes, I am a fan, and will always be. I will not try to convince anyone to love her. At this point, either you are or you're not. But I will join in always celebrating her. She has given me so much musical joy in my lifetime that it's the lest I could do to give back to her.
What a depressing read. Consider this fair warning: reading K J Boye's "The Beauty That Is Us" may make you want to slit your wrist. If you ever wanted to go inside the mind of a person suffering from depression, then by all means read this book. It is a story of Adrian and Jake, a couple, both with HIV, and then one of them contracts brain cancer, and the other loses a parent in the middle of the ordeal. I mean, talk about catchign a break with these two. I felt so down while reading it that I could only brace for more bad to happen, and Boye doesn't fail me there - there was more despair to be had. I wanted to finish the book right away not because I wanted to know what would happen to these characters, but because I just wanted to rid of them. Yes, I feel like a meanie but these kinds of stories happen to people, but I just didn't feel any joy in reading this story. Even the slight uplift at the end of the story felt like it was too late.
"Frances Ha" is one of the best-reviewed movies of the year, but I missed it at the cinemas and I am catching it up on Netflix Streaming (Netflix is real great in the instant gratification sense - I read that this movie was available on streaming, and almost five minutes later I am watching it) I want to be honest: I appreciate this movie more than I like it. I get what it is trying to do: an inky black and white movie about a sort of coming-of-age. Greta Gerwig plays the title character, who is a young woman straight out of Vassar. She is a dancer but really isn't good enough to be a professional one. At the start of the movie, she is rooming in Brooklyn with her best friend Sophie and they have this very close relationship. We see their closeness slowly disintegrate, as life does. We see Frances in different addresses (the movie chops up episodes based on her current dwellings) and we see her grow up (kind of) and make mistakes, and at the end of the move she is in a different place (figuratively, too) This movie is on the self-indulgent side, and the character of Frances isn't very likeable. I think why I didn't enjoy it more is based on who I am more than what the film is. These characters aren't appealing to me: these young, hipster and semi-hipster people grate on my last nerve, and it is more credit to the movie that they are believable enough for me that I dislike them instantly. Additionally, the world these characters are in is very foreign to me, and I just don't want to visit that world. I actually do like the structure of the movie, and I trust that the screenplay is accurate to the way these people talk to each other. Gerwig is a good actress, and as a matter of fact, she makes the character more bearable for me. In the end, though, I did not want to spend a minute more with the characters, and the film. Like a museum piece that I admire but don't connect with, I will move on tot he next piece.
I don't know how I started reading "Whore Diaries II: Adventures in Independent Escorting." I think I got into a couple of pages and just kept on reading. Even though I am really not the target audience for this book, the first couple of stories were written well and kind of interesting that I said sure, why not, I will keep on reading. About halfway through the book, though, I kind of asked myself if there was more here in this book. Perhaps that isn't the point of the book - it was more like a diary, a collection of Tara and her experience with her clients. I get the impression that Tara loves what she is doing, and she loves sex. But I also sense a disdain towards her clients, I get an impression that she really does not like them as people. MY over all impression of the book: interesting for me in a clinical sense, thus I lost interest with the story after a couple of them. They all sounded the same to me after a while.
It's a Friday night and I was up for some unwinding and relaxation, so I instinctively put on Il Divo's new album "A Musical Affair," their newest album which is a collection of songs from Broadway musicals. I glance at the track listing and rolled my eyes. The song selection is on the uninspired side: songs that we have heard over and over. Can they inject some freshness into these? Well, yes, I think they did a good enough job. The arrangements, though conventional, is not tinny, thanks to the lush sounds of The Bratislava Symphony Orchestra. These four gentlemen fill the big pieces well, and the soars are high that you cannot help but be swept away by them. At times, I felt like I was hearing songs like "Tonight," or "You'll Never Walk Alone" for the first time. I was especially enchanted by "Some Enchanted Evening," as they were able to splice some sentimental shavings into the song. But I feel the real star of the album is its roster of name guests. My favorite is Heather Headley singing with them on "Can You Feel The Love Tonight." I think Headley is one of those singers who can breathe life and nuance to the phone book. Even Nicole Schezinger comes out great on "Memory," as trite as that song is. The duet with Barbra Streisand is nothing new, as devotees of hers have heard that from her 2006 Concert album. And Kristen Chenoweth shows her soprano chops in "All I Ask Of You," making the lyric "And Christine , that's all I ask of you" a little more poignant. I always criticize albums with boring song selections, but in this case, I think even the too-familiar can work. As long as the familiar is a loved familiar.
I was reading another Beth Harbison book ("Always Something There To Remind Me") when I chanced upon her more recent book. "Chose The Wrong Guy, Gave Him The Wrong Finger." Well, why not read these two books back to back, no? In this novel, the main character, Quinn Barton finds out on her wedding day that her soon-to-be-hubby has been cheating on her. The messenger of this news? Her fiancee's brother, who is also in love with her. So she becomes a runaway bride and leaves for Las Vegas with the brother. Cut to ten years later, and we find out it didn't really work out with the brother either. She is still loveless, after all these years. Then she is faced with both these gentlemen again. Harbison is an expert on these kinds of set-ups, but since I just read another book of hers with a similar plot, that may have been a disadvantage because I can sense quite a few instances from her drawing from a "formula." But I will judge this alone. This is readable, and engrossing enough for me to finish in about a day. And I liked the fact that there is a little bit of suspense in the end. (Though one look at the title of the book and there really shouldn't have been any surprise) It also feels just a bit hollow. I wonder if there was a chapter about the trip to Vegas for example, and if it was edited out. I felt there wasn't enough back story for the man she eventually ended up wth. It's as if we were being set up for something, only for us to be given a twist just for twist's sake.
I remember at one point in my life, I wore The Body Shop's Vanilla everyday that it became almost a signature scent. I remember it being a very gourmand kind of vanilla - sweet, intoxicating, tasty. I smelled good enough to eat. And as I look at my perfume collection, I do wonder why I have only a few vanilla-centric scents. Perhaps I grew tired of it? Tobacco, on the other hand is a favorite note of mine. It shows up on some of my recent favorites, like Serge Lutens Chergui, or the economically priced Spice Bomb by Vicktor & Rolf. Tobacco Vanille is up there on the "luxury" list. Tom Ford's Private Blend line is prohibitively priced, and I always try to resist it because of that. In Tobacco Vanille's case, I almost think it's worth it. This is a very rich fragrance, it *smells* expensive. You know and sense that there is a richness in the ingredients. It opens in an aromatic haze: tobacco leaf, gincer, maple, tonka bean, fermented fruits. It's all over the place yet blended so beautifully. As the perfume develops, it becomes even more denser: the vanilla pushes forward, and there is a liquor note (Rum? Brandy?) and combined with the strengthening tobacco gives a very dark impression. I can imagine this scent on a grandfather at his smoking room, wearing his smoking jacket (I think this would be a perfect scent for Hugh Hefner, for example) This would also fit a Wall Street mogul. I used to work with a couple of them during the 80s, and a couple of them smelled similar to this. But lest you think this is smells "old man," there is a sweet gourmand note (perhaps gingerbread) that makes this smell very now, very modern.On a cold day like today, I reached for this by instinct, and it is perfection. One spray on my scarf and the scent veiled me for the whole day. I know I use the term "modern classic" a lot, but this perfume really does fit that description.
Is it true that your first real love never dies? That no matter what happens, the love of your love will forever be that, and you can never replicate those feelings with anyone else? These were the questions I were contemplating on my mind after finishing Beth Harbison's "Always Something There To Remind Me." Erin Edwards and Nate Lawson were High School Sweethearts. But a petty disagreement breaks them apart, and years later they show up in each other's lives, and it seems that everything is too late for them. To make matters worse, Nate married Erin's high school BFF, Theresa. But they both know that they have feelings for each other. Will all these obstacles be breakable for the name of true love? I think we would all be fooling each other if we said we didn't know how this story would end, but the fun part is getting there. Harbison does a good job of narrating how true love *feels* and we instantly get caught in the story and root for the main character(s) The story doesn't always ring true: there are some questionable decisions the characters make. But, the journey is color enough.
Last year, I finished watching the whole first season of "The Carrie Diaries," and I liked it. I didn't love it enough to obsessively wait for episodes, but I would binge watch after two or so episodes were recorded on my DVR. I liked the season finale, I remember: so many possibilities for great story lines with Carrie spending the summer in New York City. The second season picks up just a little further from that time: It's still Summer and Carrie and Walt are still in New York City, though the new school year - their Senior year - is looming. Carrie is still an intern at Interview Magazine, and is starting to be an expert in navigating the city. She is still kind of pining for Sebastian, who is in Castlebury. Walt has discovered himself: he has come out, at least to himself, and again he is navigating his new found realization and the city while in the city. But the best part of the season is the introduction of one of Carries' best friends: Samantha Jones, played by Lindsey Gort. Gort is fantastic - she has perfectly mastered the Samantha Jones persona, albeit the younger more-naive version of it. The episodes sparkles as they handle the city, and their shenanigans are cute fun. On Friday's episode (Episode #3: "Strings Attached") the kids go back to school in Connecticut, and I was less enthralled. Although it is mildly interesting to see how they handle life as they adjust back to suburban life, they (and we, as viewers) know that Carrie and Walt's heart was left in NYC. And the on-and-off again love angle with Sebastian is getting kind of tiresome: Carrie needs a new love interest, stat, as much appealing as Austin Butler is. I hope this series doesn't get lost in the CW shuffle: it's timeslot is in the dreaded Friday graveyard. I, for one, would love to see the transition from this Carrie to the ones we know and love from later years.
