Monthly Archives: July 2005

Everlasting Gobstopper

How silly I feel not to have been reading Filmbrain all along! My eye jumped immediately to this post about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:

When talk of a remake first surfaced some years back, naturally Filmbrain was full of woe — why would they bother? When it was revealed that Tim Burton would be directing, there were glimmers of hope — surely the man who brought us Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and Beetle Juice was an ideal candidate (actually, Filmbrain thought David Lynch would be a better choice). Then the rumors started flying around the Internet — robot Oompa Loompas, Marilyn Manson as Wonka, etc. Then came Big Fish, which was syrupy-coated Burton, and a tremendous letdown for many of his fans. Would he ever be able to return to his darker, more playful former self?

Well, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is finally here, and the good news is that it’s far, far better than Filmbrain imagined it would be. However… more.

Here’s Anthony Lane’s review of the movie; Lane makes some good jokes, which suggests that he’s in air-conditioning somewhere. He’s got the book clearly in mind, too, and that makes for some sound criticism; after noting Burton’s dizzying visual style, Lane writes: “Roald Dahl was a man of speed. His imagination was fat as a pig, but his literary method was lean…. Dahl inherited from Dickens a direct feed into the terrors and wishful thinking of the young.” It’s very good. I’ve generally preferred Denby, but this review is as light and well-made as a Cadbury Flake.

I’m sad to say I can’t say the same about the recent piece on Dahl by Margaret Talbot, which I did not like at all. (This isn’t a blanket dismissal of Talbot; her numerous praiseworthy affiliations aside, I’ve liked stuff of hers.) I’m supposed to be packing for Canada right now, so I won’t elaborate except to say she can’t seem to figure out which side to take on the several and not very compelling Dahl Controversies she names. If I were writing a longer post, I’d count up her use of phrases like “most parents…” and “the average adult…” and “generally, readers…” I don’t think I need to explain why I was so startled to read even one sentence of the kind in The New Yorker. (OK, one example: “Dahl is brilliant at evoking the childhood obsession with candy, which most adults can recall only vaguely.” I think Hilary Liftin and Steve Almond would have something to say about that.)

It’s a frustrating piece because it’s about something I love—Dahl, his books, his characters, the transition from child fan to adult recommender/parent/reader—but, like a Tootsie Pop I encountered in the mid-’80s, it lacks a center. You know how sometimes you get the sense a story was rushed into print for some reason, or the author submitted a rewrite at the last minute and the editor had to scramble to smooth it out again, or the piece was constructed from a bunch of emails and notes and never quite jelled into something with a beginning, middle, and end? I have no idea what the tale is here, but something’s amiss, and I was disheartened by the result. Not to mention that Talbot more than buries the lede—Jeremy Treglown’s charge that Dahl was “a fantasist, an anti-Semite, a bully and a self-publicizing trouble-maker” is listed way after far fluffier objections. (Here’s a simple but interesting perspective on the various serious charges against Dahl; this Beliefnet article lays out the charges concisely and responds thoughtfully.) And comparing Dahl’s short fiction for adults to “Twilight Zone” episodes, even favorably (as Talbot does here), is an injustice to his best nuanced, deliciously sadistic stories of sex, deception, tattoos, cruelty, pickpockets, greyhounds, marriage, and corrupt antiques dealers. I’ll elaborate when I can, because this piece is a real anomaly, and it could have been a pip. Odd.

As for the movie, I’m slightly wary—who decided it should be another head film?—but of course I’ll see it. There’s a terrific e-mail forum in the current issue of PEN America in which Jonathan Franzen, Hendrik Hertzberg, Tony Hiss, Mindy Aloff, and Mark Alan Stamaty, among others, submit their favorite movie adaptations of works of literature. Totally satisfying.

Dad: John Roberts, dangerously quiet

A judicious warning about Supreme Court nominee John Roberts from my esteemed father, in TPMCafe’s Supreme Court Watch:

All the indications are that he will become another vote to expand presidential power in national-security affairs, to limit the federal government’s authority to regulate business and the environment and protect civil rights, to make it harder for women, minorities, labor and the disabled to pursue practical remedies in the courts, and to favor a larger role for religion in public life and as object of public subsidy. He is most likely to do this incrementally, case-by-case, rather than by sweeping new doctrines…. Roberts will be very hard to challenge, because all Bush’s choices were bound to be bad and this one could have been much worse. More.

Roberts Was Involved in Florida Recount (not in a good way) [Eric Umansky]

The Round Table’s round numbers

From the Rocky Mountain News via the NY Post (they say; I can’t find the link):

ON THE BLOCK: The Denver real estate investment firm Miller Global Properties has put New York City’s famed Algonquin Hotel up for sale, according to an item in the New York Post. Miller Global, headed by Myron “Micky” Miller, one-time partner of former Denver oilman Marvin Davis, is asking “in the neighborhood of $60 million to $70 million,” according to the Post.

The Algonquin was the home of the historic round table that hosted the likes of Dorothy Parker, George S. Kaufman and Robert Benchley.

A phone call to Miller Global was not returned on Monday.

A $10,000 Martini at the Algonquin Hotel [John Ridley for NPR; text and audio]

The song is ended


But the melody lingers on, at least for cptave, winner of the eBay auction for the inaugural issue of The New Yorker. One might ask, does virtue indeed have its reward? Mr., Ms., Dr., Monsignor, Father, Sister, or Captain cptave, who has an approval rating of nearly 99 percent, has earned such praise as “you are dealing with the best,” “BEE-YOU-TEE-FUL,” and “A+++++++++++.” How much better does it get than that, at least without adding more plus signs? Well, despite my crushing bitterness at sitting out the auction of my dreams, I must honor my promise to salute the winner, and I do, I do tip my hat to anyone who’s willing to hand over $442 (the winning bid) for a rare treasure like this. Tremendous as the forthcoming archive of the entire magazine is, there’s nothing like holding an old issue in your hands, turning the pages, wondering at the more of-the-moment cartoons (the evergreen above is from said début issue), marveling at the full-page, brightly colored liquor and tobacco ads (“Yoo hoo, Ponsonby! Look at the present I just got…a bottle of Calvert Reserve!” cries a near-naked man running through the snow, to his butler), buying a war bond or two for good measure, and generally feeling like your grandparents, whether they read the NYer or not. My own well-preserved Olde Issue of December 12, 1942 (which features, among many other delightful things, Joseph Mitchell’s “Professor Sea Gull” and a poem titled “Oh, to Be an Amoeba”), gives me just this sensation. Well, I’ll face facts: I’m crazy jealous. But as the Rolling Stones once said, Though you can’t always get what you want, you can want it as vocally as necessary till the next auction comes along. Which, if things go well, will be in my lifetime.

Cartoon caption contest: Clown collage

This week’s caption entries are in (for this contest—updated link), and miracle of miracles, two out of three are so good I’m finding it hard to choose:

“I’m beginning to think I liked you better when you worked at Morgan Stanley.”
Submitted by John Mariani
Tuckahoe, N.Y.

“I told you not to bring the clown!”
Submitted by Max Brooks
Chicago, Ill.

“Well, if you must know, he makes me laugh.”
Submitted by Jacqueline Tager
Hollywood, Calif.

The second two are the picks in question, of course. The first is just a cheap shot; the second gets at the strange dark heart of clowns, as in Stephen King and John Wayne Gacy, Jr., the one real clowns (and I know) hate so much to hear about. The third is just great psychological evil. Men have been winning, for the most part (I may be wrong, so I’ll double-check to ward off squawks from fact-checking fiends), so I think—though it’s tough—that I’ll go with Tager’s entry. Seriously funny, this collection, and it can only mean good things for the contest’s future. Go and vote before you forget!

I’m pleased to report that once again, my pick has won the current contest, Victoria Roberts Fishbowl Couple. Congratulations, Jan Richardson of Ridgeland, Miss. (Kenyon ’85), on “He’s the cutest little thing, and when you get tired of him you just flush him down the toilet”! Delicious. For the new contest, let’s christen the bird the Hornby Pigeon in honor of A Long Way Down, which I liked very much and the Times did not, although I believe the reviewer in question (one M.K., not to be confused with Mary-Kate Olsen, although there was a juvenile quality to this particular review that might warrant making the comparison) did not actually read much of Hornby’s novel, or at least not very closely. Oh well, not everyone likes suicide fantasias. Those who do should read the Hornby, then write in with a suitably funny-sad caption. I’m glad to see pigeons getting their say in the media after all the abuse they take, so give them the voice they deserve.

I was found, but now I’m lost


Here’s my relationship to eBay: I bid on things other people don’t know to want (the lesser-known esoterica of Milton Klonsky, Lester Gaba’s soap-carving oevre, books by my great-grandmother). That means the auctions stay under $10, and on the rare occasions I bid, I always win. So when I want something this badly, it’s almost a shock that there are other people in line driving up the price beyond poet-critic-blogger capacity. This, of course, is no ordinary auction: It’s the first issue of The New Yorker, February 21, 1925, and I can’t have it. (The reason I haven’t been posting about it since it went up: selfishly hoarding just in case.) For skeptics, the seller has posted this exchange:

Q: Is this the original or the reprint of the original? What are the entries on the copyright page?

A: This is not a reproduction, but is one of the few, if not the only first issue extant, or in private hands, I think, unless Peter Fleischman or his heirs has one. I’m not sure what the questioner means by the entries on the copyright page, but here’s a try: There is a box lower left on page 30 headed The New Yorker. It goes on to say “The New Yorker is published every Tuesday by the F-R Publishing corp. 25 West 45th Street. H. W. Ross, president; Raoul Fleischman, vice-president; Robert W. Collins, secretary and treasurer. Etc., etc. If the questioner is asking about other things appearing on that page, above the box mentioned there are two columns of classifieds headed “Where to Shop” with a drawing of a Rolls Royce and people with packages, and a column to their right called “Jottings About Town,” and under it “A New York Dictionary.” Does this answer the questions?

And, with the description, a note on the origin:

First issue of “the New Yorker” magazine, February 21, 1925, with Rea Irvin’s famous cover, reproduced (somewhat) annually. Cover nearly separated with some soilure. Inside somewhat faded, but unblemished otherwise. 32 pages, 8 1/2 “ x 12”

Note: since this item has been posted the cover has separated. This issue is guaranteed to be the 1st issue, not a 1953 reproduction or reprint. Originally owned by New York artist Alexander Brook.

There are 10 hours left in the auction (currenly at $200; starting bid $50), and if you win, email me. I’ll come over and, solemnly, salute. No, not you, you spendy monster, the magazine. Good luck, and remember the power of the barter. Just something to keep in mind.

Update: It’s still at $200. Six hours left. Heretofore unknown wealthy great-uncle waiting for the right moment to contact me with the combination for the top-secret safe containing my rightful fortune, perhaps now would be a good time?

Update update: $205. If there’s the usual last-second pillowfight, who knows how the feathers will fly?

The wisdom of Muggles

Marta Salij on Harry Potter, in the Detroit Free Press:

The Half-Blood Prince is … not who I thought it was all through the book.

And, the sixth book in J.K. Rowling’s series about the boy wizard who’s chosen to save the world from the evil Lord Voldermort proves an interesting point: Many heads are better than one.

Because, you see, the online betting pools that had sprung up to wager on what would happen in the book were largely right, especially right before the book was released Saturday at 12:01 a.m.
…
That last part intrigues me, having read and reviewed The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki (Anchor, $14), last year. Surowiecki described how asking a vast number of lay people to predict something was almost always more accurate than asking a small group of experts.

And that’s what a betting pool is: a way to average many hunches.

For “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” some online sports betting sites had added pools on which major character would die in the sixth book — a plot development Rowling had announced. Several names had strong betting, but in the days and weeks before the book’s release, some pools, especially in the United Kingdom, shifted around one name.

I won’t tell you which name, because that would be spoiling the book for those who haven’t yet finished it. But those pools were right.

Inside information? Maybe, but then more bettors clearly saw the wisdom of that guess and put more money in that direction. That proves Surowiecki’s point: That many people, putting together their various sources of information, good and not-so-good, would come up with a more accurate answer than asking, say, a random book critic to predict the death.

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It was the guy in the Lufthansa ad, wasn’t it?


Spot the incongruous detail in Helaine Olen’s Times story about how she didn’t like what she saw when she read the nanny’s blog, or how Olen couldn’t control her voyeurism but wasn’t quite up to talking to her employee about her concerns:

Our former nanny, a 26-year-old former teacher with excellent references, liked to touch her breasts while reading The New Yorker and often woke her lovers in the night by biting them. She took sleeping pills, joked about offbeat erotic fantasies involving Tucker Carlson and determined she’d had more female sexual partners than her boyfriend.

I love how “self-righteousness and inflated self-regard” are terms better applicable to blogging rather than to, say, writing a first-person piece in the Times about one’s wistful transition from boozing, shagging youth with the weakness for 19th century literature that’s so tempting in our twenties to Krugman-skimming stroller-pusher bent on monitoring “her” worker’s downtime and the gender of her crushes. By the way, here’s the nanny’s blog (she’s a nanny now, too). She responds to Olen’s piece at great length:

Contrary to an essay published in the Style section of the NYTIMES, I am not a pill popping alcoholic who has promiscuous sex and cares nothing for the children for whom she works with. Nope. If you look carefully through my archives, instead you will find a young woman in her mid-twenties who decided to work as a nanny for a year while she prepared to enter the next phase of her professional life; namely the life of an academic pursuing a PhD in English Literature specifically focusing on the Late Victorian novel. But for those of you who dont want to comb through the archives, I will offer a refutation of the salacious, malicious, and really quite silly essay written by Ms. Olen.

Ms. Olen opens her essay with eye catching details designed to paint the picture of a prurient pill popper. She notes I mention biting my lovers, having sexual thoughts about Tucker Carlson, and taking sleeping pills. So, lets revisit those entries and see if they are really so titillating.
…
Yes, I mention that I want to do “dirty dirty” things to Tucker Carlson. I dont offer details. So, I am assuming that Ms. Olen’s imagination ran away with her and she decided that it was very sordid. But on a closer reading of this post you will find I use Tucker Carlson, a noted conservative pundidt, as an example of how opposites attract. How intellectual tensions between two people can actually fuel romantic desire. And then I do something really really deviant. I compare my crush on him to the romantic tensions in Jane Austen’s famous Pride and Prejudice. Yep, my version of the erotic has more to do with long walks and serious conversations. Of course, Ms. Olen does not point that out in her essay. My interest in literature and how I weave it through more common daily reflections would probably detract from her intent to show me as an irresponsible party girl. But there it is, on the blog she so strenuously objects to.

At least Olen will bring lapsed readers back to Sharon Olds, whose poem “Life With Sick Kids” the nanny links to, calling Olds’ writing about her kids “really, some of my favorite love poems.” (The blog’s name, “Instructions to the Double,” comes from Tess Gallagher.) What a great feud! Sunday Styles v. twentysomething blog—so iconic.

Update: There’s been a lot of debate about this today, much of it emphasizing the stupidity of the blogger for telling her boss about her highly personal blog in the first place. Of course it was dumb! And borderline crazy to post stuff about her boss’ family on the blog the nanny must have known her boss was reading religiously (some would say hungrily). Nevertheless, if Olen was uncomfortable, she should have said the first time: “Your personal life is your own, and I find your writing entertaining. Besides, I know, because of your excellent references and demonstrated work ethic, that you’d never be hung over on the job or IM with your boyfriend while you’re watching my kids. But could you do me a favor and not post anything about your work for me or about our family? Thanks, kid! You’ve been a great nanny and someday you’ll be a swell academic.” Simple, right? In any case, I think there’s another, so far unreported, story here. There’s nothing more galling than someone not reading your blog once you’ve given them the address; my own theory is that the nanny was so irked by her boss’ lack of interest in her creative life that she loaded the blog with stuff she knew would get Olen’s goat. It would be on the nutty side, yes, but as we know, there’s no shortage of nuts in this story’s Cracker Jack box.

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Harry Potter and the inevitable comparisons



If London children, in particular, are finding the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince terribly familiar—the Prime Minister paces his office searching desperately for a way to react to inexplicable deaths and unforeseen new dangers—they may be especially chilled by this exchange between the distraught P.M. and newly elected Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour:

“But for heaven’s sake—you’re wizards! You can do magic! Surely you can sort out—well—anything!”

Scrimgeour turned slowly on the spot and exchanged an incredulous look with Fudge, who really did manage a smile this time as he said kindly, “The trouble is, the other side can do magic too, Prime Minster.”

Whether you read it as Good People v. terrorists, opposing parties’ political machines, loose nukes, or whatever, it’s altogether true.

As for prisoners of Azkaban, some instances of unnamed sources quoted or cited in The Daily Prophet in the first 50 pages:

• ” ‘We’re not allowed to talk about it, don’t ask me anything,’ said one agitated Obliviator, who refused to give his name as he left the Ministry last night. Nevertheless, highly placed sources have confirmed…” “a growing number of the wizarding community” … “speculation is rife” … “some are going so far as to call Potter” … (“Harry Potter: The Chosen One?” p. 39)

• “Rumors of a rift…surfaced within hours of Scrimgeour taking office.” (“Scrimgeour Suceeds Fudge,” p. 40)

• ” ‘For obvious reasons, the Ministry will not be going into detail about its stringent new security plans,’ said the Minister, although an insider confirmed that measures include defensive spells and charms, a complex array of countercurses, and a small task force of Aurors dedicated solely to the protection of Hogwarts School.” (“Ministry Guarantees Students’ Safety,” p. 41)

Here’s an interview I did with Rowling in 1999. Speaking of books, I’m guest-hosting Michael Broder’s great Ear Inn reading series at 3 p.m. It’s at 326 Spring Street, west of Greenwich St. The readers are Gary Joseph Cohen, Adam Kirsch, and David Yezzi; the hash browns are scrumptious.

Is Harry Potter Evil? [Judy Blume, NYT via judyblume.com]
‘Harry Potter’ Author Pregnant; Will Deliver Baby in 14 to 18 Months [Andy Borowitz]
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone [Anthony Lane, New Yorker Film File]
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets [Michael Agger, New Yorker Film File]
Why American Kids Don’t Consider Harry Potter an Insufferable Prig [Daniel Radosh]

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