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Belated Book Group Update

A couple of weeks ago our book group met to discuss the long-awaited new novel from Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot. I liked the book, but I didn't love it. I think two things were going on:

1. I might have liked it better if it had been written by someone else—or even if it had been written by Eugenides under a pseudonym. I guess I saw his name on the cover and thought, "It's going to be another Middlesex!" which of course it wasn't. Middlesex was easily one of the top ten books I've ever read, so I was bound to be disappointed if he couldn't pull that off again.

2. On the other hand, I might have liked it less if it had in fact been written by someone else. I was willing myself to like it because it was Eugenides, but perhaps if it had been some no-name debut novel, I wouldn't have even enjoyed it at all.

So. The three main characters are almost exactly my age, and their college and post-grad experiences and angst were quite similar in some ways to my own. Eugenides totally nailed everything about the early 1980s—trust me, it was all exactly like that. But, well, I just didn't like them all that much. Madeleine wasn't interesting to me at all, and in fact I wanted to shake her at more than one point because she was so annoying. Leonard isn't developed enough as a person; he becomes merely That Messed-Up Guy. And Mitchell, well, I guess I liked Mitchell pretty well, although I'm generally impatient when forced to be privy to someone else's spiritual quest for understanding and fulfillment.

The writing is also neither here nor there: A whole lot better than most of what's out there, but not nearly as mind-expanding and heart-twisting and breath-taking as Eugenides is capable of.

I don't know. I guess I'll say don't run out this minute to get your hands on this, but if you end up with a copy to read, you could do a lot worse.

Next up: Just Kids by Patti Smith.

Friday Links

I am swamped with work but experiencing attention-span issues today, so I decided to take a minute to share some links with you (in case you need a break from work, too).

My Pantone delights continue, with this awesome Pantone Rubik's cube (via Catherine) and this entire Pantone Hotel! Fly me to Brussels, stat!

For those of you who love Jacques Pépin as much as I do, watch this wonderful interview he did with Charlie Rose. And yes, of course I have his big new book, but no, I haven't cooked from it yet, or even had a chance to watch the accompanying DVD.

These are the most painfully obvious spelling mistakes ever seen in tattoos.

What if recent films had been made decades earlier?

If you feel like blowing a few minutes (or hours) on fun/interesting videos but don't know where to start, go directly to Devour.

And speaking of videos:

Yes, most of the "Shit [So-and-So] Says" videos are dumb, but I like this one: Shit Nobody Says

10 Misconceptions Debunked

What Happens in a Bookstore After Hours

Pickin' & Trimmin' is a lovely short film about an old-time barbershop in North Carolina where they also happen to play a lot of bluegrass music.

Every Presentation Ever Made (via Fritinancy)

And the one that I turn to every time I need a pick-me-up is of course our Prez crooning like Al Green.

 

 

Black

Twice in December I totally shocked an African person by guessing what country he was from. The first time I was at the mall with Steph, which means that I was miserable and off-kilter. They have all these people manning kiosks in the middle of the walkway, and I am notoriously incapable of denying them my money. (I was once persuaded to buy a fancy-shmancy nail care kit. Yes, me. In other news, if you ever hear of someone who cares less about how her nails look, please let me know. Or, better yet, if you hear of someone who does care about her nails, I have a completely unused fancy-shmancy nail care kit to sell her. Real cheap.)

So when this handsome and charming man approached and asked if I wanted my hair straightened, I shouted, "No! I like my curls!" and when he asked whether I wanted even curlier curls, I shouted, "No! I like my curls exactly as curly as they are right now!" Then I turned defiantly to storm away and the next thing I knew Steph had one side of her hair perfectly straight and the other side perfectly curly and she was looking at me with a very dangerous, dreamy expression. So as I pulled out my wallet, I hissed at her, "This [the fancy-shmancy hair straightener and hair curler all in one) is not a Hanukkah present! It is too big for a Hanukkah present! It will be an early birthday present." The handsome and charming man said to me, as he swiped my VISA card, "Oh, you celebrate Hanukkah? I'm Jewish too!" He was black and had a hint of an African accent, so I took a guess and said, "Oh, you must be from Ethiopia!" at which point he just about dropped his magnificent white teeth.

I had detected an African lilt to his accent, and the only African Jews I've ever heard of are the Falasha Jews of Ethiopia, so I took a gamble. He was impressed. Then he pocketed my money.

A week later, on Christmas day, our TV died. It was a big ol' Sony Trinitron, which in its day cost about twice what a plasma-screen TV would cost now. Off we went to Best Buy, where we bought the largest flat-screen TV that would fit in our old-fashioned TV cabinet. Then we brought it home and found that we couldn't get it to work. We called Comcast, and they sent a guy over. Who was black and had an accent.

And who was also awesome. He worked so hard and for so long and finally figured out our problem. But then, when it was finally working, we noticed that the picture wasn't that great—certainly nothing like it was in the store—which he said was because it's an HD TV but we don't have HD cable service. So we signed up for that extra service and the picture looked gorgeous immediately. (And when our other big ol' Sony Trinitron in the basement dies, we will have to replace that one with a flat-screen TV—but I promised Pete a biggish one that hangs on the wall, because it will be in the basement where I won't have to see it—and subscribe to HD for that TV too. Such a scam.)

But anyway, we asked our Comcast guy for his name so we could call Comcast and say how awesome he was. He wrote it down, and it ended with "–bbe," so I thought of the Israeli rescue at Entebbe and said, "You must be from Uganda!" Again, bright white African teeth fell at my feet. I should have my own Jeopardy! category.

Speaking of black people from Africa, you may notice that I did not refer to either of these men as African American, because I don't know whether they are American. (If you saw a black person while you were on vacation in London or Paris or Toronto, you wouldn't refer to them as "African American," would you?) By the same token, I have known black Americans who don't refer to themselves as African Americans for various reasons. I used to work with a guy who could trace back through many generations of his family in the Bahamas, so he was more inclined to refer to himself as Bahamian than African, although Africa is likely where his ancestors originated. Indeed, Africa is likely where all of our ancestors originated, according to scientists and anthropologists.

My point being: A black person seen in America is not necessarily American, nor is he necessarily most interested in focusing on his African heritage. If you need to describe someone who is black (as in, "Officer, I saw the blue van go through the red light and hit both the black man on his bicycle and the white man who was walking his dog"), say that he is black, because that is something you know. You don't know if he is American or if he identifies as African.

Complaining and Cooking

Yes, I'm still sick! I went to the doctor today and begged him to find something wrong with me that could be treated with antibiotics, but he was all "It's clearly viral...." so I left prescriptionless and still sneezing and coughing. Last night, for the first time in my whole life, I took Nyquil. It allowed me an hour or two of uninterrupted sleep in between bouts of furiously wiping my nose. I will take it again tonight.

Speaking of wiping my nose, I am a big fan of Kleenex Ultra-Soft tissues. I do like the ones that have lotion, but they aren't as all-purpose as these (for instance, don't even think about wiping your glasses with the gooey ones!). But curiosity got the better of me and I had to try a box of the new Kleenex Cool-Touch tissues. It's very strange, but they are indeed cool to the touch—but not in the menthol-y way I was expecting! They are actually cool temperature-wise. Very strange. And they have lotion. Although they are labeled "unscented," I could detect a hint of something, and I can't stand that. Plus the coolness was more weird than soothing, so back to Ultra-Soft I go.

And ... this was supposed to be a post about what I made for dinner, but I got sidetracked by my own intro. What could be a better way to introduce a recipe than to discuss my endlessly runny nose and what I use to wipe it? Sigh. So go away and come back in 5 minutes and start reading again.

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Hi! Tonight for dinner I made a cheater's lasagna where you use frozen ricotta-filled ravioli instead of a tub of ricotta and slippery sheets of freshly cooked lasagna noodles. I've done this before, long ago, but had kind of forgotten about it. I think of this recipe as just a general guideline; you could vary it any way you please. Enjoy!

Ravioli Lasagna 

1¼ lb. bulk Italian pork sausage (I used garlic-herb chicken sausages, casings removed.)
1 jar (26 to 28 oz.) tomato sauce
1 package (25 to 27½ oz.) frozen cheese-filled ravioli (I used spinach-ricotta ravioli, which worked out great.)
2½ cups shredded mozzarella cheese (10 oz.), divided use
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

In a 10-inch skillet, cook the sausage over medium heat, stirring occasionally to break up the meat, until no longer pink; drain on paper towels. (If, like me, you are using a chicken or turkey sausage, you'll need to start with some oil in the pan.)

Spread about ½ cup of the sauce in the bottom of an ungreased 13x9" glass baking dish. Arrange the still-frozen ravioli in a single layer, then evenly pour about 1 cup of sauce over the ravioli. Sprinkle evenly with half of the cooked sausage and 1 cup of the mozzarella cheese. Repeat with another layer of ravioli, sauce, and sausage.

Cover tightly with foil; refrigerate at least 8 hours but no longer than 24 hours. (This is kind of tricky timing, because you have to do it either before breakfast or after dinner the night before. I did it at 10am, so it didn't stay in the fridge for the full 8 hours, but I don't think it suffered any.)

Heat the oven to 350°. Bake the lasagna, covered, for 45 minutes. Remove the foil; sprinkle the lasagna with the remaining 1½ cups mozzarella and the Parmesan cheese. Bake about 15 minutes longer or until the cheese is melted and the lasagna is hot in the center. Let stand 10 minutes before cutting.

Flicks

We have been sick. Sick, sick, sick. Pete started off the sickest, and Julie ended up the sickest (so far, anyhow). I think we have used up more Kleenex in the last 3 weeks than in the whole last year.

But we have been watching movies too. Remember movies, those things I used to watch all the time and review for you here? Yeah, those.

So first was Open Range, which Netflix had mailed to me last April and I just got around to now. It's like Lonesome Dove, but not as good, although it does have Robert Duvall, who is wonderful as always. But instead of Tommy Lee Jones, it has Kevin Costner, who is lackluster as always. Oh, and Annette Bening too, who I especially like to look at. If you like Westerns, you'll like this well enough.

Next up was The Fighter, which we'd been wanting to see for a long time. It is set in the Boston area and stars Mark Wahlberg, who of course knows how to do a Boston accent. Christian Bale is as creepy as ever, and his Boston accent wasn't bad either, especially for a Brit. It tells the true story of the boxer Micky Ward and his half-brother Dicky Eklund. Melissa Leo is outstanding as their mother. Almost as good as the movie was the "making of" documentary that was included with the special features on the DVD. It was really interesting to watch Wahlberg and Bale interacting with the real Micky and Dicky on and off the set. Both Leo and Bale won Oscars for their roles, and I think deservedly so.

Then came Inception, which is a sci-fi thriller starring Leo DiCaprio. It makes very little sense if you try to put all the pieces together but works if you allow most of it to just be inscrutable. Pete watched this one with us and was very confused and frustrated, but I told him to just accept without understanding that these people can enter your dreams and that there can be dreams within dreams, and "levels" of reality, and then he could enjoy it.

Gran Torino is a very formulaic story of a grouchy, racist old guy (Clint Eastwood, at his grouchiest) who forms an unlikely friendship with the teenage kids of the Hmong family next door. Nothing surprising happens at all, but it was still enjoyable.

Finally, yesterday we watched Crazy Heart, starring Jeff Bridges as an aging, overweight, alcoholic country singer who's nearing the end of his career, while the singer he mentored, played by Colin Farrell, is becoming the new big star. Maggie Gylenhaal plays the love interest. This story's been told a million times before, but it's really Bridges who makes it worthwhile seeing again (and he won the Oscar for it too). There were many moments when the plot was less than believable (I won't give details in case there's anyone left out there who hasn't seen it), but watching Bridges makes up for it. Oh, and Robert Duvall is in this one too, yay!

Let's see, what else ... oh, right, on Christmas we actually went to the cinema. The girls saw The Muppet Movie and loved it; I considered going with them but was more in the mood for a big-screen action movie, so I accompanied the boys to the latest Mission Impossible movie. This one was even better than the last one, although my comments there apply here too. (To wit, Cruise is still a douchebag, and I still would prefer to hate him, and he looks even more like a douchebag when he's running, but he was good in this.)

These last two don't really count, but I saw the last part of Thor when Pete and Andy were watching it On Demand. They liked it. I also saw the last part of Tropic Thunder when Pete was watching it by himself, and it seemed outrageously funny, with yummy Robert Downey playing an Australian actor who is so into method acting that he has a "controversial" medical procedure to change his skin color to play an African-American in his latest movie. And guess what, Jack Black plays a fat funny guy! Oh, and Ben Stiller doing his Ben Stiller thing.

Now you are all caught up.