Author: Admin

10 Picks From My Netflix Five-Star Movie List

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I love Netflix. They pretty much have my choice in movies pegged: indie, quirky, comedy, drama, and foreign movies, as well as British TV series. I trust their ratings (from my input of course). They know better than to suggest animal stories where some poor creature gets hurt and/or dies, or anything to do with abused/kidnapped kids. Here goes in no particular order, except for the first one, which remains one of my favourite movies of all time.

1. Wings of Desire (1987)

This Wim Wenders film centers around the story of two angels wandering in a mixture of post-war and modern Berlin. Invisible to humans, they nevertheless give their help and comfort to all the lonely and depressed souls they meet. Finally, after many centuries, one of the angels becomes unhappy with his immortal state and wishes to become human in order to experience the joys of everyday life. He meets a circus acrobat and finds in her the fufillment of all his mortal desires. He also discovers that he is not alone in making this cross-over, and that a purely spiritual experience is not enough to satisfy anyone. Stars Bruno Ganz and Peter Falk looking like he wandered in from the set of Columbo. The first clip is of him, the second a better one of the beginning of the movie. http://youtu.be/u7s-H4EqP4I  http://youtu.be/Ic8iGIdv80o

2. Blood Simple (1984)

A bar-owner in Texas is certain his wife is cheating on him and hires a private detective to spy on her. This is just the beginning of a complex plot which is full of misunderstandings and deceit. Ethan and Joel Coen’s first feature film. Need I say more, except that it stars Frances McDormand along with M. Emmet Walsh. http://youtu.be/vI0ov8zzfQA

3. Fargo (1996)

Another Coen brothers film, a black comedy set in the north Dakota city of Fargo with Ms. McDormand playing a pregnant police chief who investigates a series of homicides and William H. Macy as a car salesman who hires two criminals to kidnap his wife, played by Kristin Rudrud. Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare play the criminals and Harve Presnell the salesman’s father in-law. Many residents of Fargo were not fans of the film’s dark humor, not to mention the heavy accents. But the fame and cash from the movie eventually brought many Fargo residents around. Now, 16 years later, Fargo awaits the debut of a new cable television show by the same name. And many residents are less apprehensive about how their hometown will be portrayed this time around. http://youtu.be/EB4PmbfG4bw

4. There Will Be Blood (2007)

Coen Brothers as producers again, this one written, co-produced, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. The film is loosely based on Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel Oil! It tells the story of a gold miner-turned-oilman on a ruthless quest for wealth during Southern California’s oil boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It stars Daniel-Day Lewis and Paul Dano. Wow! http://youtu.be/ml2Ae2SIXac

5. Seven Samurai (1954)

Directed by Akira Kurosawa, one of Japan’s greatest directors, this is the story of a veteran samurai, who after falling on hard times, answers a village’s request for protection from bandits. He gathers six other samurai to help him, and they teach the townspeople how to defend themselves. In payment, the villagers supply the samurai with three small meals a day. The film culminates in a giant battle when 40 bandits attack the village. Seven Samurai is described as one of the  greatest and most influential films ever made, and is one of a select few Japanese films to become widely known in the West for an extended period of time. http://youtu.be/zNqQXC8Tv8U

6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

This is a story of evolution. Sometime in the distant past, someone or something nudged evolution by placing a monolith on Earth (presumably elsewhere throughout the universe as well). Evolution then enabled humankind to reach the moon’s surface, where yet another monolith is found, one that signals the monolith placers that humankind has evolved that far. Now a race begins between computers (HAL) and human (Bowman) to reach the monolith placers. The winner will achieve the next step in evolution, whatever that may be.  Stars Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood. http://youtu.be/kkyUMmNl4hk

7. Chinatown (1974)

A screenwriter friend gave me the script for this movie, said it was considered the perfect screenplay. I still have it somewhere. JJ ‘Jake’ Gittes is a private detective who seems to specialize in matrimonial cases. He is hired by Evelyn Mulwray when she suspects her husband Hollis, builder of the city’s water supply system, of having an affair. Gittes does what he does best and photographs him with a young girl but in the ensuing scandal it seems he was hired by an impersonator and not the real Mrs. Mulwray. When Mr. Mulwray is found dead, Jake is plunged into a complex web of deceit involving murder, incest and municipal corruption all related to the city’s water supply. Stars Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Diane Ladd, and Roman Polanski as “Man with a knife.” http://youtu.be/3aifeXlnoqY

8. Around The Bend (2004)

In LA, Jason Lair is recently separated, living with his grandfather and his son; he’s a banker, tense, with a limp. Grandfather Henry, an archaeologist, wants to take the family van on a trip to Albuquerque. His plans are interrupted when Turner, Jason’s father and Henry’s son, appears after years of absence. Henry wants to celebrate family, as does Zach, Jason’s son; Jason is angry and distant, Turner seems detached and says he’s got a bus to catch in the morning. This prompts Henry to put in place an elaborate plan that will send his “tribe” on that VW bus trip to New Mexico sorting out relationships and digging up a crippled family history. Dust and dogs figure prominently. Stars Christopher Walken, Josh Lucas and Jonah Bobo as the kid. An unexpected pleasure was watching Christopher Walken do a solo dance scene. Did you know he know he initially trained as a dancer? http://youtu.be/XiZLtromCJY

9. Chocolat (1988)

No, not that Chocolat with Juliette Binoche. This one is set in Africa and based on director Claire Denis’s childhood memories. The story examines the devastating effect of French colonialism through the eyes of a young girl coming of age in 1950s West Africa. When a plane makes an emergency landing in the isolated colonial post where 8-year-old France (Cécile Ducasse) lives, a diverse group of whites and Africans is stranded and must stay with France’s family, forcing sexual, social and class tensions to arise. This reminded me so much of my life albeit without all the sexual tension, but the colonial situation did and the countryside. Excellent. http://youtu.be/dwoeV6qncpU

10. Bob and Rose (2001)

With both humor and drama, this hit Britcom romantically pairs a most unlikely — and highly controversial — duo: gay man Bob (Alan Davies) and straight woman Rose (Lesley Sharpe). The two meet, fall in love, and are bewildered by what has happened … as is everyone around them. Handling sensitive material with grace and humor, this award-winning series transcends gender issues to look at the fundamentals of life, love and relationships I loved it. This video is from Episode 2. http://youtu.be/tpQDbq5SA5Q

The Road Not Taken

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In checking out an email notification that I had a new follower on Twitter–Ellen Wade Beals–I came across this Robert Frost poem on her website Solace in a Book. I don’t ever remember finding such depth of meaning in these words of Frost’s, which I had read before–hadn’t I?–so much so that when I read it through for the second time hours later, examining each word with a critical eye, I found no mention of redemption, purpose and soul. Perhaps, like that very first time I read the poem all those years ago, I was reading it with my mind again, and not my heart.

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The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

Robert Frost

My First Job

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My first job was selling sweets (candy) in Standard Trading Company on Regent Avenue in Kitwe/Nkana (Kitwe was the town side, Nkana the copper mining community which supported it; this was where my family lived). The sweets were displayed behind a four-sided curved glass island in the middle of the one-storey building. I was fifteen and could barely see over the top of the counter. It was the Christmas holidays.

There was a grocery section at the back where you brought your list (or sent your servant with a list–everyone had servants, African men from the surrounding villages), and the gruff man behind the counter collected the items from the shelves and stacked them in front of you, kinda like you see in old cowboy movies (did we bring a basket?)

I worked alongside Mrs. Brown, her with the tight lips, helmet hair-do and apron. I didn’t wear one. Not worthy, or did I manage to get out of it? The job didn’t last long, but what I remember was cleaning out what seemed like a hundred glass-fronted sweet sections filled with chocolates off all kinds: cream-filled, hard centres, toffee, nougat and nut, and then there were the Licorice All-Sorts, Mint Imperials, boilings (barley sugar hard candy), butterscotch and licorice. This also included cleaning the glass inside and out. I didn’t mind the task because then I didn’t have to serve customers.

One day I found a cockroach in a corner of the cherry-filled chocolates. Bugs, or as we call them, gogos (pronounced with a guttural intonation like you’re clearing your throat) have never bothered me, but I felt I should point it out to Mrs. Brown. She stiffened, glanced around like arrest was imminent, grabbed a piece of cardboard and with a look of abject horror bent down, scooped up the cockroach and motioned me to continue my task, while she dropped the beast to the floor and squashed it beyond recognition.

This one Friday she sent to me to Kingston’s, the local bookshop to pick up her weekly magazines. I was thrilled to get out of work and planned to pick up the latest Beano, a comic from England. With a glance over her shoulder, she urged me to hurry. I was delayed by a line that never seemed to end. Unable to decide whether to charge back without her magazines (and my Beano) or stay in line, I chose the latter. Tenacity is my worst and best quality. By the time I charged back  in a cold sweat of panic, magazines in hand, she was apoplectic. A week later I left to return to school and thereafter never went back to the sweet counter at Standard Trading Company.

 

 

Book Review–Winter’s Tale

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I read Winter’s Tale by Mark Halprin (1983) over the holidays, all 768 pages. This is a visionary story of the beauty and complexity inherent in the human soul, about God, love, death and justice and the power of dreams, those that take place while we sleep and those we conceive while awake. As I read this book, I found myself lifted above some emotionally rough patches I was experiencing. It was the sheer scope of it all, which to me translated to a much greater concept of what the mainline consciousness believes to be reality, albeit in an ungrounded fantastical way, like this passage: “.  . . but now with the blessing, amnesty, and encouragement that good climbers requisition from the thin air, he ascended a nearly sheer column in the interior of the Grand Central Terminal.”

The story takes place in a mythic New York City near the turn of the 20th century, in an industrial Victorian era style and opens with a tiny isolated quote three-quarters of the way down the first page: “I have been to another world, and come back. Listen to me.”

When asked if the book could be called magic realism, Mark Halprin responded that it is as much as the Bible can be called magic realism. Intriguing. Everything about this book defies anything I’ve read before.

Here’s a short summary from Amazon:

“New York City is subsumed in arctic winds, dark nights, and white lights, its life unfolds, for it is an extraordinary hive of the imagination, the greatest house ever built, and nothing exists that can check its vitality. One night in winter, Peter Lake–orphan and master-mechanic, attempts to rob a fortress-like mansion on the Upper West Side.

Though he thinks the house is empty, the daughter of the house is home. Thus begins the love between Peter Lake, a middle-aged Irish burglar, and Beverly Penn, a young girl, who is dying.

Peter Lake, a simple, uneducated man, because of a love that, at first he does not fully understand, is driven to stop time and bring back the dead. His great struggle, in a city ever alight with its own energy and beseiged by unprecedented winters, is one of the most beautiful and extraordinary stories of American literature.”

Connected

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L A Times writer Meghan Daum is one of my favourite columnists and I usually agree with most of what she writes, but I found today’s piece about Facebook–“I ‘like’ me, I really ‘like’ me”–to be off the mark. Frankly, it made me wonder if I’m just living in a different Facebook world, or maybe I’m just naive.

She contends our relationship to Facebook has changed, that it used to make us feel connected to the world, but now it makes us feel bad about ourselves; it has become an advertisement for our insecurity. We’ve become a culture of curators and show-offs, hand-selecting our most triumphant and photogenic moments and presenting them as everyday occurrences, an unmitigated, unapologetic opportunity for public relations. “It’s a forum not for sharing but for bragging.”

She goes on to list the ways in which we do this. There’s the “humblebrag,” boasts that are loosely disguised as self-deprecation–“Spilled coffee inside my Maserati. What a dope!” The chest-thumping-masquerading-as-self-esteem she calls the “empowerboast. “Feeling so good about myself today. Realizing that I am beautiful and wise and deserve to be loved.” The mom brag, the posting-of-hot-photos-of-yourself brag. “Always, and often inexplicably, these posts will be showered with ‘likes’ and approving comments that also manage to be competitively boastful–‘When I was in Moscow I couldn’t tear myself away from Winzavod. Very cool.'”

She asks the question: “Is bragging about yourself actually a form of appreciating–or even respecting–yourself?” but then concludes that as a culture we can’t distinguish positive thinking from hubris. “We tell ourselves we’re not bragging, just putting out good vibes. We’re not putting the spotlight on ourselves, but rather spreading the light around so that others, too, will flourish in the glow.” That’s crap, she says, “These aren’t good vibes. They are advertisements for our insecurity. Posting a brag, humble or otherwise, and then waiting for people to respond is the equivalent of having a conversation in which all you do is wait for your turn to speak. That is to say, there’s nothing to learn from it, but we all do it occasionally.” She ends by resolving to stop posting on Facebook.

Her assessment makes me wonder who her “friends” are, or did one of them just piss her off? If it weren’t for FB, I wouldn’t have re-connected with my school friends in Zambia 11,000 miles across the ocean, I wouldn’t have connected with a group of women writers who now feel like family after we all met in IRL (in real life) in Santa Barbara in August. Here’s my blog about the meeting. I wouldn’t have a forum where, loner me, can put myself “out there.” With all its faults, Facebook has helped make the world a smaller more connected place.

What does Facebook mean to you?

Spicy Eggplant With Pork/Lamb

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After all the holiday guzzling, this dish will ease you back into healthy eating. It’s one of my favourites. I’ve adapted it from a Sunset Magazine recipe, with mushrooms and/or zucchini added and some of the measurements changed.  Serves 4.

I serve it over cooked rice noodles, but jasmine rice will serve just as well.

Photo: Annabelle Breakey; Styling: Robyn Valarik
  • 1/3 cup chicken broth
  • 2 tbsp. each lime juice and soy sauce
  • 1 to 2 tbsp Sriracha chili sauce (I use 3 tbsp, but then I like it spicy)
  • 1 1/2 to 2 skinny Japanese or Chinese eggplant, ends trimmed (the Japanese eggplant keep their colour better)
  • 1 zucchini
  • 1/2 pound sliced mushrooms
  • 3/4 pound ground pork (I use lamb)
  • 3 tbsp. olive oil, divided
  • 3/4 cup thinly sliced shallots
  • handful of chopped cilantro (you can’t use too much in my opinion)

Mix broth, lime juice, soy sauce and Sriracha in a measuring cup. Cut eggplant and zucchini into length-wise slices about 1/2 inch thick and 3-inches long.

Cook pork/lamb in a wok over high heat, stirring to break up clumps, until lightly browned, 4 to 6 minutes. Add about 2 tbsp broth mixture and stir until liquid evaporates, 1 minute. Transfer to a bowl and wipe pan.

Return pan to high heat and add 2 tbsp. oil. When hot, add eggplant, zucchini and mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until beginning to brown, 3 minutes. Add shallots, remaining 1 tbsp. oil, and 1/4 cup water and continue to stir fry until eggplant, zucchini and mushrooms are browned and tender and shallots are caramelized, 7 to 9 minutes more; add a little more water if pan juices start to darken too much.

Pour in remaining broth mixture and pork/lamb and stir until most of the liquid is absorbed, 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a serving dish and toss with cilantro. Serve over the noodles or rice. Yum!

 

 

Down to My Bones

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I visited my long deceased mother a couple of days ago through an article I read in the Los Angeles Times. It was about a Korean Spa in L.A. where in a uniquely 24-hour spa experience families get together in what looks like a reunion picnic, or summer camp. Some families even spend the night. But on the floors where the men and women part company, there is only one rule: you must get naked.  And here’s where I got snagged into connecting with my mother. It was the closing paragraph as described by the author: “I retreated to the darkened room on the women’s floor, passing robed bodies lying end to end, and a mother with her limbs entangled with her daughter’s, all sound asleep.”

small_2250395225That image of the mother and daughter, naked with their legs entwined set up a deep visceral longing within me, a palpable desire to have had that kind of loving intimate relationship with my mother, a relationship I never had, never wanted growing up, not consciously anyway, because I just didn’t trust her. She made me feel all wrong. Sure, I was headstrong, cheeky, and not a boy like she’d wanted, but why couldn’t we connect, cleave together in our femaleness in the African male-dominated society in which we lived? A society she railed against. Did it all boil down to courage and her own disconnect with self; did she just not know how to go to the next step, how to relate to me, a living piece of herself? I’ll never know. We never had a chance to work it out, what with me emigrating to America at 22, and her in Africa and then her death three months before I turned thirty-six. But in my own way through much introspection, I’ve forgiven myself and her for what we didn’t know how to do. This article struck a deeper level of my long path to heal; this time I felt it down to my bones.  (photo above courtesy of Alicepopkorn)

This is my first Trifecta writing challenge–33-333 words on the word of the week (mine is 332). This week the word is “heal” in the context of restoring purity or integrity.

Crockpot Lemon Chicken Pitas

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Nice and easy for this time of year and the leftovers make a fabulous chicken salad, infused with lemon as it is. (I adapted this from Red Tricycle’s recipe and used their picture, below)

Start by placing a package of chicken breasts (1 – 1 1/2 lbs) or in my case, chicken thighs–I hate white meat–in a Ziploc bag. Add the zest and juice of one lemon, 1 tsp. garlic, 1 Tbsp. olive oil, salt and pepper. Marinate the chicken for at least 24 hours. I wouldn’t recommend less than eight hours so you make sure all the lemon gets absorbed into the chicken.

When you’re ready to cook, throw the bag of chicken mixture into the Crock Pot along with about 1/4 cup of chicken broth. Water is okay too; just something to keep the chicken from drying out when it’s cooked. Cook on low for about 6 – 8 hours, until the chicken shreds.

Serve the lemon chicken with tzatziki sauce piled onto a piece of warmed pita or Middle Eastern flatbread along with chopped tomato and onion.  You can add a Greek salad or perhaps Trader Joe’s rice medley. FAB.

Missing

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I’ve been missing for over a month now from my blog and from Facebook, well, except for a few mind-transmitted messages from the wilderness where I found myself after I fell off the NaNoWriMo trail, just a week into the journey with barely 4,000 words under my belt (but hey, I managed to conjure up a viable story idea with a great protagonist). I’m not sure what happened other than I have a really shitty sense of direction. But on the other hand perhaps I needed to be in the wilderness for a while, frustrating as it was. A time of renewal perhaps. One can only hope.

However, while in the wilderness I managed to do four things: I wrote a 700-word essay on “The Greatest Lessons I’ve Learned as a Writer,” for what will hopefully be a
guest post on fellow writer, Cate Russel-Cole’s blog in January (the piece actually turned out to be more of a statement on how writing changed my life–hope that works out for Cate); I fractured my little toe; I signed up for a class with Carnegie Mellon University on “Argument Diagramming” (more on this in a later blog), and lastly, I came across Absolem, the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. He was sitting on a leaf on a kumquat tree (yeah, there was one of those in the wilderness, my sustenance).  He had a face just like Absolem, I’m telling you. Freakish. Delightful. My photo does not do him justice. Where is my friend Britton Minor Grafensteiner with her micro-lens to capture his elfin face, his eyes as he checked me out, the bong by his side. Cool.

 

Easy Dinner Recipe

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In a hurry and nothing planned for dinner? I adapted the following from a Los Angeles Times recipe so long ago I can’t remember when. The meal can be created from ingredients most people have on hand. Serves four to six depending on how many ingredients you add.

Ingredients:

  • 1 onion, coarsely chopped
  • 2 carrots, sliced longways, or chopped
  • ½ tsp basil
  • ¼ tsp oregano
  • garlic
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 cans chicken broth
  • 1 can diced tomatoes (in tomato sauce, or add a little tomato sauce—not ketchup)
  • 1 can pinto or cannellini beans (if using the latter, add at the last minute)
  • Handful of uncooked pasta

Saute the onion for a couple of minutes, add garlic and carrots, cook until barely tender. Add 2 cans of chicken broth, 1 can of diced tomatoes (and sauce), ½ tsp basil, ¼ tsp oregano and bring to a boil. Add a handful of uncooked pasta and simmer for ten minutes then add the can of beans, including the liquid and heat through. Other vegetables, meat or chicken can be added as desired. I usually add one or a couple of the following meats: chopped lamb, chicken thighs, turkey kielbasa.