A Frolic of My Own

Jazz, Books, Food, and the Writing Life

Blogging from New Orleans, La

23 June 2008

There is no FCC on the internet, so the late George Carlin can say his seven words in peace (needless to say, it’s NSFW):

Posted by Todd at 9:59 am | Comments (1)

19 June 2008

Other People’s Prose:

They sound a bit like a long-tenured married couple, rehashing their courtship. “We trust each other’s palates, Klank says. “Yeah, but you spit out that fig sauce I made one time,” Hernandez says. “You had a different idea about gravy.”

“That’s why I took you on a tour of Southern restaurants; we hit the Colonnade on Cheshire Bridge, the White House on Peachtree,” Klank says.

“And I started cooking buttermilk fried chicken with green beans and green chile sauce,” Hernandez says.

Out of that playful bickering has come something approximating beauty. In building Taqueria del Sol into an almost-institution, Klank and Hernandez have divined fast-casual restaurants that matter. Restaurants that dish blue-plate specials, garnished with cilantro. And pour molar-rattling sweet tea, as well as reposada margaritas. And practice — but refrain from preaching — a biracial gospel of good eats that all can embrace.

John T. Edge on Taqueria del Sol in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

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17 June 2008

Tom Waits is on tour and taking questions from the press. Now why is his stopping in Tulsa and not New Orleans?

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16 June 2008

Andrea and I have never been good at keeping up with movies. Since James came along, we don’t even try. But we finally saw Juno.

It was entertaining. Cute. Funny at times. I don’t buy that any sixteen year old would be that blasé about getting pregnant. But it’s a movie though, so I’ll suspend my disbelief.

What really struck me about Juno was the waste of a great supporting cast. So many interesting characters, each with their own story, were left as mere sketches. And a squad of find actors were wasted. A lot of indie films suffer this same defect. Too many writers t identify with their lead character and can’t step outside of themselves to see the situation from the other side.

Although it’s a different medium, Jonathan Franzen’s novel The Corrections is a great work because each character gets the author’s full sympathy. Perhaps it’s just a question of artistic maturity. Maybe Diablo Cody, the screenwriter on Juno, will next write a movie with a larger scope.

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6 June 2008

Other People’s Prose:

At least, you could argue, Miranda has a job, as a lawyer. But the film pays it zero attention, and the other women expect her to drop it and fly to Mexico without demur. (And she does.) Worse still is the sneering cut as the scene shifts from Carrie, carefree and childless in the New York Public Library, to the face of Miranda’s young son, smeared with spaghetti sauce. In short, to anyone facing the quandaries of being a working mother, the movie sends a vicious memo: Don’t be a mother. And don’t work. Is this really where we have ended up—with this superannuated fantasy posing as a slice of modern life? On TV, “Sex and the City” was never as insulting as “Desperate Housewives,” which strikes me as catastrophically retrograde, but, almost sixty years after “All About Eve,” which also featured four major female roles, there is a deep sadness in the sight of Carrie and friends defining themselves not as Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Celeste Holm, and Thelma Ritter did—by their talents, their hats, and the swordplay of their wits—but purely by their ability to snare and keep a man. Believe me, ladies, we’re not worth it. It’s true that Samantha finally disposes of one paramour, but only with a view to landing another, and her parting shot is a beauty: “I love you, but I love me more.” I have a terrible feeling that “Sex and the City” expects us not to disapprove of that line, or even to laugh at it, but to exclaim in unison, “You go, girl.” I walked into the theatre hoping for a nice evening and came out as a hard-line Marxist, my head a whirl of closets, delusions, and blunt-clawed cattiness. All the film lacks is a subtitle: “The Lying, the Bitch, and the Wardrobe.”

Anthony Lane reviewing Sex and the City for the New Yorker.

Posted by Todd at 12:57 pm | Comments (1)

Some Harvard grads are grumbling that J.K. Rowling, author the Harry Potter books, isn’t worthy of delivering the commencement address at their august institution. NPR interviewed some outraged students:

“I think we could have done better,” shrugged computer science major Kevin Bombino. He says Rowling lacks the gravitas a Harvard commencement speaker should have.

“You know, we’re Harvard. We’re like the most prominent national institution. And I think we should be entitled to … we should be able to get anyone. And in my opinion, we’re settling here. “

Mr. Bombino’s quick correction speaks volumes about what he learned at Harvard. It’s ok to act entitled, but it’s bad form to talk about it.

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