Category Archives: The Morgue

With Age Comes Apparel

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Advanced Style

The Stars of “Advanced Style”

Take New York Times street fashion photographer Bill Cunningham, add some Joan Rivers, Oprah, and Dr. Oz, and you’ve got the formula for the documentary Advanced Style (trailer here).

Photographer Ari Seth Cohen profiles seven fashionable ladies “of a certain age” (60s through 90s) whose sense of color, textures, and bold accessories (clunky cuff bracelets, enormous earrings, and oversize rings and eyewear) he discovered on the streets of Manhattan. Amazing photos of one of them—Tziporah Salamon—are included in this 40+ Style interview.

The women all have a back story, and not everything in their lives is ideal, but they are at ease with who they are. As one woman remarks, “I do a portrait with clothing. I build; I construct.”

Through Cohen’s blog and book, also titled Advanced Style, the women have been noticed by the advertising world in campaigns for Lanvin, and, oddly enough, KMart.

While engaging and entertaining, the documentary devolves into one-line tropes about aging, such as, “Everything I have two of, one hurts.” But overall, it’s worth trying on.

Guest Blogger Jodi Goalstone writes the highly entertaining blog: Going Yard, Offbeat Baseball Musings, currently showcasing the great writing coming out of the unexpected victories by Kansas City and San Francisco.

All the News That Fits We Print

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journalism, Times, New Jersey

(photo: the author)

This photo shows better than words the sorry state of journalism in the capital city of the great state of New Jersey. Would you guess from this that our Governor is a potential presidential nominee? Maybe so, considering he’s a person of weight.

Global warming, Syria and Iraq, the economy, Ebola hysteria—much important stuff is happening in the world and in the nation and even in New Jersey. It’s a major chemical-producing state, headquarters for many pharmaceutical firms, yet still a major farming state (blueberries, cranberries, peaches), important Revolutionary war, American Indian, and industrial history site, host of the nation’s largest seaport, major educational and scientific resources, and a commuter haven. All these industries and activities are vital to the region, with more than 100 million Americans—almost a third of the U.S. population—no more than an overnight drive away. New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the nation, sends 15 people to Congress, and has all the challenges and richness that an economically, culturally, and otherwise diverse population brings to the table.

Trenton itself deserves ongoing, close journalistic scrutiny. It’s just beginning the recovery from a corrupt mayoralty and complicit city council and someone needs to hold its leaders’ feet to the fire, and who’s to do that? Network news stations? The state has none, pinched as it is between New York and Philadelphia. Public media? Governor Christie sold off our public radio and tv resources to powerhouse WHYY in Philadelphia and WNET in New York. They vowed to cover the state thoroughly, of course, and . . .

The recent “local” Princeton story about NBC physician-reporter Nancy Snyderman violating her Ebola quarantine was broken not by the Times, WHYY, or WNET, but by hyperlocal news website, Planet Princeton, run by my friend, Krystal Knapp. When these other entities got around to covering the story, they neglected to give Krystal credit. Not so CNN’s “Reliable Sources” (link to come, once it’s posted) and this Washington Post blog.

I’m afraid the newspaper front page says it all.

The Understudy

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JD Taylor, Adam Green, The Understudy, Theresa Rebeck, Adam Immerwahr, McCarter Theatre

JD Taylor & Adam Green in The Understudy (photo: McCarter Theatre)

An exciting opening night at McCarter Theatre on Friday, with the audience anticipating Theresa Rebeck’s knowing backstage comedy, The Understudy, and area fans awaiting the directorial debut of up-and-coming Adam Immerwahr, McCarter’s Associate Artistic Director. Adam’s fine work has been on stage at Trenton’s Passage Theatre, but this was the Big Time, on the big McCarter main stage. He pulled it off beautifully, in a production whose complexity, pre-show gossip said, required three tech rehearsals.

The conceit of the play is that a new Franz Kafka play has been discovered and is being produced on Broadway with two Hollywood action stars in lead roles (shades of the first season of Slings and Arrows, the hilarious Canadian series). The play opens with a literal bang, when unemployed but high-minded actor Harry (Adam Green) rushes on stage for a rehearsal, as he’s been cast as the understudy to the lesser of the Hollywood lights. Harry’s opening monologue—interspersed with bits from the Kafka play—shows all his disdain (“OK, I’m bitter”) for the star, his acting ability, and the film vehicle he just appeared in, for which he was paid more than $2 million. Harry fixates on this impossibly large sum with a shimmering mix of envy and pop-culture loathing.

The stage manager Roxanne (Danielle Skraastad) is a woman Harry was once engaged to but ran out on two weeks before the wedding—the wedding dress “still hangs in my closet. Like a wound.” The third character, the pretty-boy and somewhat dim star, Jake (JD Taylor), valiantly tries to explain Kafka and the deep significance of this new play. The cast is strong, with Green (who played Figaro last year) having a genius comic touch. The humor in Skraastad’s lines is limited to sarcasm, which she wields expertly. Taylor, too, plays his deceptively complex role so that the audience goes from laughing at his selfies and sense of entitlement to appreciating his vulnerabilities. We never see the stoner manning the light, sound, and set cues, who gets every one of them wrong, creating constant onstage turmoil (and requiring those three rehearsals).

The name of the fake Kafka is “The Man Who Disappeared.” It applies to both of the male characters, and is the one fact about Harry that is never out of Roxanne’s main line of sight. Harry describes a casting call experience where an assistant tells him, “No one will see you, you don’t exist.” Very Kafka, and very apt for all of them at one point or another. What the play shows is how they can exist for each other, at least for a few moments. Rebeck’s intimate knowledge of the theatre and its dilemmas is absolutely convincing, but the problem of “being seen” and heard applies to creative artists in general, to people in general, to all of us who’ve had the dream of going to an important meeting and . . . you . . . just . . . can’t . . . get . . . there.

The Economist Parses Publishing

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Papyrus

(photo: wikimedia.org)

So much has been written about the various pieces of the book publishing dilemma lately it was delightful to be pointed to this article from The Economist that assembles the whole juicy pie. If this is all you read about this topic, you’ll understand more than most people.

The title of the essay—“From Papyrus to Pixels”—suggests the editors stance. The conveyance of written information has evolved from the earliest days of this form of communication and continues to do so. Still, “the digital transition may well change the way books are written, sold and read more than any (other) development in their history, and that will not be to everyone’s advantage,” the authors say.

Industry players caught in the last paradigm, notably independent booksellers, have been seen the changes reduce their financial viability, as did the papyrus manufacturers of Ancient Egypt. Meanwhile the large publishing houses still mostly see increasing profit margins, despite Amazon’s fierce competition. About this massive e-tailer, The Economist quotes English novelist, Anthony Horowitz: “They really are evil bastards. I loathe them. I fear them. And I use them all the time because they’re wonderful.”

Moreover, despite all hand-wringing to the contrary, books themselves, as a technology “developed and used for the refinement and advancement of thought,” continue to thrive.

Naturally, this being a story about the economics of the industry, with many nifty charts (be sure to view the projected timeline of the rise of ebooks internationally), it gives only passing attention to the plight of individual authors, caught between downward pressure on ebook prices and conventional publishers’ obsession with blockbusters. The Economist quotes one industry analyst who suggests that while consumers may have more books available to them, fewer people may be able to make a living as full-time writers or publishers.

In addition to lots of juicy databites and useful, even-handed perspective, the article gives you a chance to test Spritz—a new small-screen application that smoothly displays one word at a time, at the pace you set. It’s way faster than regular reading because your eyes stay in one place, not having to wander across and down the page. And, potentially, glancing off the page entirely and out the window or over to the refrigerator. Spritz’s “most immediate application is to allow longish text to be read on smallish screens,” The Economist says, “such as those of watches.” Just as you bonded so completely with your iPad.

Talk about an Income Gap!

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Hudson News, airport news stand

(photo: wikimedia.org)

Let’s call a temporary moratorium on grousing about how little money most aspiring book authors make—90 percent make absolutely $0—and peep through the keyhole at how the rich fare. Forbes last month published a list of the world’s top-earning authors and it includes some newcomers who demonstrate the appeal of “young adult” lit for people of all ages. Maybe this shouldn’t be a surprise since American adults, on average, read at the 8th grade level.

We all know that royalty checks arrive by the cartload to James Patterson—presumably shared generously with the humming hive of workerbees who help him produce 14 books a year—and brought in the top figure, around $90 million last year, June to June. In a laggardly second place is Dan Brown, with $28 million.

Three women writers complete the top-earning five: Nora Roberts ($23 million), Danielle Steel ($22 million) and Janet Evanovich ($20 million). Suzanne Collins, who hit it big with The Hunger Games, had to be satisfied with a measly $16 million. Speaking of falls-from-financial-grace, I’ll be a snob and confess my delight that E.L. James’s Fifty Shades of Grey scam netted her only $10 million last year, precipitously down from the $95 million of the previous year.

She was beaten out by young adult author Veronica Roth, a recently young adult herself at age 26, who earned around $17 million from print and ebook sales of the Divergent series over the past year—not counting income from the film adaptation. John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars, received some $9 million from U.S. book sales, plus more from last summer’s movie. He ties for 12th place with Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl (a review of that movie posted here Oct 6).

J.K. Rowling had $14 million in earnings, putting her in 8th place. Others in the double-digit list are John Grisham, tied with Stephen King at $17 million, George R. R. Martin ($12 million), David Baldacci ($11 million), and Rick Riordan ($10 million).

OK, enough wallowing in piles of filthy lucre. Back to reality.

Gone Girl: The Movie

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Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn, Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike(No spoilers!) I was so up for the Gone Girl movie (trailer) because the book was one of my “Best Reads of 2013.” The movie could have disappointed in so many ways, and it did not. According to the credits book author Gillian Flynn wrote the screenplay–here’s what she says about that–and in the few places the movie departed from the printed page, it didn’t make a big difference.

The acting throughout is terrific. Ben Affleck, is a natural playing everyman Nick Dunne caught in snares of lies. Rosamund Pike (An Education), amazing as Amazing Amy. In a radio interview director David Fincher said that after watching clips of so many actresses over the years, he can get a read on them and their acting tricks pretty quickly, but when he saw Pike’s clips, he couldn’t “read” her. It made him think she’d be perfect for the Gone Girl, and he was right.

Also liked Tyler Perry as defense lawyer Tanner Bolt and Kim Dickens (Treme’s chef Janette Desautel) as Detective Rhonda Boney. (By the way, do you know your spouse’s blood type?) Everybody’s manipulating someone, except maybe Nick’s sister Margo (Carrie Coon). The omnipresent TV talk show hosts commenting in the background are too realistically sleazy to be all that entertaining. The movie website is as Fox News might have produced it.

If you like a suspenseful story, you’ll like the twists and turns of this one. If you haven’t read the book, there’ll be more surprises, but even if you have, it’s an exciting tale. There remains a weak spot at the very end, but there’s so much else that’s laudatory, it’s easy to forgive. Rotten Tomatoes critics rating: 87%; audience score 92%. A lot of the reviewers, while giving it a pat on the back with one hand seem to want to stab it in the back with the other. They give, but then they take away. Puzzling.

A Reading Future: 5 Under 35

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5 under 35, National Book Awards, Redeployment, Panic in a SuitcaseHere’s another item to add to the long list of not-happening life events—after riding in a helicopter and becoming a triathlete—being a National Book Foundation’s 5 under 35 honoree. The books of this year’s selection of five distinguished young writers are an exciting foretaste of our reading futures. The honorees, selected by past National Book Award winners and finalists, are:

  • Yelena Akhtioskaya, Panic in a Suitcase, two decades in the life of a Russian immigrant family in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn
  • Alex Gilvarry, From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant, a young Filipino immigrant steeped in New York’s fashion world finds himself accused of participation in a terrorist plot
  • Phil Klay, Redeployment, a novel of the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq still being waged in the minds of our returning soldiers
  • Valeria Luiselli, Faces in the Crowd, three narrators’ overlapping stories of love and loss
  • Kirsetn Valdez Quade, Night at the Fiestas, intense and darkly humorous stories that cover the range of human desires “to escape the past and to plumb its depths”

Reading them can definitely go on my list of happening things.

The Soul of Wit

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scissors, blood, editing

Editing Done (photo: c2.staticflickr.com)

One of the best career moves I ever made was a freelance gig I designed for myself in which I wrote weekly columns about health policy that I self-syndicated to newspapers. This was back before health issues became a constant drumbeat when few news outlets had a regular health correspondent. I lived in Washington, D.C., I had access to experts and government officials, these topics interested me, and I believed people needed to know more about them. From a content perspective, totally correct; from a business income perspective, hopeless.

I never made much money at it—the largest-circulation paper to pick up the column was the Cleveland Plain-Dealer—but I what I learned was pure gold. Not about health policy. About saying what you have to say in 750 words or less. Medicare, Medicaid, care organization, mental health—these are complicated issues. 750 words (or less). It’s helped my writing every day since. Extra words and long-winded phrases still drive me crazy, and Twitter’s easy.

That makes me the perfect cheerleader for Mandy Wallace’s excellent blog post on “cutting the fluff from your fiction”—though anyone who writes as much as a memo can benefit from at least some of her advice. She links to other helpful resources, and I’d bet you’ll find some pet phrases (I did!) in the appalling catalog of redundant phrases. Interestingly, the first of her “5 powerful techniques” connects to an essay on “Thought” Verbs that definitely will not produce a shorter text, but a more meaningful one, shorter only by elimination of empty words. Another good outcome.

The Trip to Italy

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Steve Coogan, Rob Bryden, Trip to Italy

Rob Bryden & Steve Coogan in The Trip to Italy (photo: sundance-london.com)

If you saw the well-received 2011 movie The Trip in which British comedians Rob Bryden and Steve Coogan (who surprised in his straight role as the journalist in Philomena) play themselves on a restaurant tour in northern England—neither one supposedly knowing a thing about haut cuisine—you know what to expect from The Trip to Italy (trailer). Both movies are edited versions of the pair’s television sitcoms, and both were directed by Michael Winterbottom. In Italy, they are doing the restaurant thing and pilgrimaging to places where the Romantic poets lived, died, and are buried.

Some critics prefer the earlier film, but I liked this one at least as well. For one thing, I knew not to feel like I’m on pause, waiting for the plot to start. There isn’t one. Or not much of one. In The Trip, the food scenes involved visiting posh restaurants with hushed, museum-like surroundings serving unbearably pretentious foams and essences and portions that might satisfy a wee fairy. It was funny, but it was more or less a single joke. Still, with these two, mealtime is never a bore. Coogan and Bryden make terrible scenes at every dinner, usually with their dueling impressions. In The Trip, there was a long hilarious sequence of each man’s “definitive” way to do Michael Caine at different ages. In The Trip to Italy, they take on a large cast, and we get The Godfather.

You have to listen closely because the jokes just keep coming, as the two plunge into various socially awkward situations, yet maintain a plausible fiction of two prickly friends on a simple driving tour. But beneath la dolce vita is a strong current of middle-aged angst and, as the movie progresses, an increasingly strong thrum of death—which culminates in visits to Pompeii and the giant ossuary that is Naples’s Fontanelle Cemetery caves. This juxtaposition sneaks up on you and makes their pursuit of life that much richer and more grounded. These aren’t just two overgrown showoffs on an expense account. Thankfully, Winterbottom has a light touch with all this, and you’ll walk away thinking you’ve seen a comedy. Rightly so.

The scenery alone is worth the price of the movie, and the glimpses of the Italian restaurant kitchens and their chefs at work—fantastico! I guarantee you’ll leave the theater wanting to drive right to the nearest restaurant—“how about Italian?” Rotten Tomatoes critics rating: 87%.

Banned Books Week

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Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, banned books

(photo: wkipedia.org)

This is Banned Books Week, that annual opportunity to contemplate the perils of censorship, with Huckleberry Finn right up there as an exemplar of that folly. Here are some ways to make this national event significant in your own reading life.

Publisher Hachette provides a list of its banned and challenged books (including The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Naked by David Sedaris, The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger, and, yes, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird). On its Facebook page, author Janet Fitch has posted a picture of herself with her favorite banned book—Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer—and invites others to do the same.

Similarly, Simon & Schuster’s call for Twitter users to photograph themselves with their favorite banned book has led to a collection of cute pictures with the hashtag #BannedBookSelfie. (1984, Animal Farm, The Hunger Games, Perks of Being a Wallflower). Last month I gave my friend J a bracelet made up of covers of banned books—she should tweet a picture wearing it!

Macmillan has seemingly thrown together a webpage for the week that showcases its twitter feed and features rotating anti-censorship quotes from people as varied as Dwight Eisenhower and Lemony Snicket. It also includes nice descriptions of two of its formerly banned books—The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander and Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden.

The Huffington Post asked teachers whether they include any banned books in their classes, and, if so, why, using the #TeachBannedBooks hashtag, which has received an enormous Twitter response.

An epicenter of BBW activities is The American Library Association and its Office for Intellectual Freedom. Its staff created a 50 State Salute, with YouTube videos from each state showing how Banned Books Week is celebrated locally with Read-a-Thons and other activities.