Meg Benjamin's Blog, page 18

The Vengeful Critic

Hilton Als hates Nathan Lane. And right now you’re probably saying “Who?” To clarify, Hilton Als is one of the theatre critics for The New Yorker. Nathan Lane is the actor, probably best known for playing Max in The Producers and Albert in the movie version of The Birdcage. Lane has also appeared in lots of television shows like Modern Family and 30 Rock. But every time he appears on stage, Als torpedoes him.

Lane’s latest role is the lead in The Iceman Cometh, at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Although Als likes the production and heaps praise on everybody else in the play, he claims that Lane is incapable of performing the central role and comes off as a male Ethel Merman. It’s an extremely harsh review, but it’s not the first time Als has gone after Lane. He called his performance as Dalton Trumbo in Trumbo superficial and also accused him of ruining a production of Aristophanes’ The Frogs by rewriting it to match “his monstrous ego.” Basically, anything Lane does, Als will despise. He simply doesn’t like the man.

To me, this raises a larger question: If Als despises everything Lane does, should Als go on reviewing Lane’s performances? Is that fair to Lane? Is it fair to the other people in the plays where Lane takes the lead? If a critic absolutely can’t stand an artist, should that critic go on reviewing the artist’s work?

This question has a larger application than Als and Lane. I’ve heard authors moan that certain reviewers always slam their books. One friend wondered why a particular reviewer went on reading her stuff since said reviewer had never liked anything she’d written. There’s more than authorial sour grapes in that observation. While I can understand a reviewer disliking one book by an author and then trying another to see if the author does a better job, after several books it should be obvious that the reviewer and the author simply aren’t a good fit. Should the critic go on reviewing the author or move on to somebody else?

After a certain point, a review can become little more than an ego trip. A reviewer who, say, listens to the latest Miley Cyrus album for the sole purpose of writing a snarky review about how lame Miley Cyrus is really needs to find a better use for her time. She’s not trying to give an honest evaluation of Cyrus’s music, she’s having a good time at Cyrus’s expense.

I guess the bottom line here is the question of how a critic should approach an artist’s work. If a critic goes into a book or a play or a movie knowing only too well that she’s going to hate it, that’s not only unfair, it’s silly. As consumers, most of us will avoid artists whose work we know we dislike. Shouldn’t critics behave in the same way?

It’s one thing to give an artist a second chance. It’s another to write a review with the intention of slapping an artist around because you don’t like him. All of which is to say the next time Nathan Lane has a production opening on Broadway, I hope Hilton Als will take the night off.

Six Sentence Sunday – Don’t Forget Me

Here’s another bit from my latest Samhain book, Don’t Forget Me. My hero and heroine, Kit and Nando, are former lovers who’ve moved back to the same town together. In this bit, Kit sees Nando for the first time since returning to Konigsburg. She’s a little freaked.

Even at a distance she recognized that tall, muscled body, that fall of dark hair. He held his Stetson in his hand, ready to put it on. She caught the quick flash of his teeth as he grinned at something the kid had said, then he turned in her direction.

She stumbled backward into a doorway, her heart pounding almost painfully—No, no, no! She didn’t want to see him the first time like this. She wanted to be ready—controlled, collected, maybe even a little  amused: Oh, hi, Nando. Long time no see.

Five Things I Love About Texas

I just returned from ten days in Texas, seeing family and old friends, bopping around the Hill Country, and drinking a whole lot of Texas wine. Now I love Colorado right down to its pebbles, but this trip made me remember just what it was I liked about living in Texas. I admit there are things I don’t like about Texas (chief among them the heat and humidity that had me looking like the mad woman in the attic), but there are a lot of things I love and miss. Here’s a short list.

1. Texas wine – We watched the Texas wine industry begin to grow in the nineties, and it’s a real joy to go back and see wineries we used to visit in Quonset huts and two-room offices now sporting fancy digs and even fancier wines. Texas wine makers are really hitting their stride now, and more and more of them are switching to the hot weather grapes that are a natural for the region. Everybody’s doing a tempranillo, for example and lots of people are doing tannat and mourvèdre as well. These are big, full-bodied wines that deserve to be sipped and savored. It will take us months to finish off all the wines we brought back. I can’t wait!

2. Texas music – The hubs and I made the mistake of stopping at Lone Star Music in Gruene, which features Americana CDs almost exclusively. It was a mistake because I can’t go there without loading up, and load up I did! We also stayed at a hotel in Austin that was the headquarters of the Austin Music Project. In the lobby we walked by huge posters of Joe Ely, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Marcia Ball, Flaco Jimenez, and too many others to count. And then there are the Americana stations like KSYM in San Antonio. I even read an article in Edible Austin where the author talked about cooking risotto while listening to James McMurtry. Ah guys, how I’ve missed you.

3. Barbeque – I’m not really a barbeque snob. I’ve found good barbeque in a lot of different places, including Colorado. But Texas has turned barbeque into a way of life. Every small town you drive through has a high school football team, a Dairy Queen, and a barbeque joint, identifiable by the large black smoker at the side and the cords of wood stacked at the back. If it’s the right time of day, you can also identify it by the tantalizing smell of smoke and brisket. We had lunch at Cooper’s as we headed back toward home. Bliss.

4. HEB – Denver has three national grocery chains along with some small local markets, but it has nothing like HEB. The Texas grocery chain is unique in that it always has exactly what you need if you’re a serious cook, as well as the usual stuff like Doritos and salsa. I miss it every time I set foot in Kroger’s, thinking “Damn it, HEB would have the Swanson’s Organic Free-Range Chicken Broth I’m looking for.”

5. Mockingbirds – If you’ve never heard a mockingbird, think of it as a bird that specializes in covering other birds’ songs. And once a mockingbird gets going it’ll run through its repertoire for what seems like hours. It’s also pretty to look at and stalwart in protecting its nest. When I mentioned how much I missed mockingbirds, the hubs suggested that perhaps global warming will drive them north. Gee, one positive effect of a worldwide catastrophe.

Okay, Texas, all I can say is that I’ll be back again sometime. Not to stay, but definitely to visit. Y’all take care now.

The Spoiled Darling

You can always spot a heroine who’s a spoiled darling. If it’s a regency, she stamps her foot a lot. If it’s a contemporary, she pouts. In both time periods she tosses her head quite a bit. Her family indulges the hell out of her, of course, because she’s a spoiled darling. She’s always gotten her way, which means she’s accustomed to running roughshod over everybody in her path, but her parents and siblings are convinced that she’s adorable so she gets away with murder.

Until, of course, she meets the hero, who is unaccountably intrigued by her. The two bump up against each other repeatedly, the heroine trying to bend him to her will (because everybody always bends to her will, you see) and the hero resisting. Eventually, the heroine becomes someone less bitchy under the hero’s influence and we move on to HEA.

You’ve probably gathered by now that this isn’t one of my favorite characters. I’ll put up with her as long as there’s some indication she’ll snap out of it soon. But the longer it takes her to start behaving decently, the more likely I am to move on to another book. I’m reading a historical now with a spoiled darling in the lead. She’s being beastly to the hero because he doesn’t meet her expectations for an attractive guy. He, rather than suggesting the heroine go find herself somebody who fits her exacting standards, is trying to break down her defenses. At the moment, I’m going along with it because the heroine is showing some signs of interest in the hero. But she flounces a lot, and I really wish somebody would give her a good shake.

I don’t have a problem with a heroine who defends herself against unjust social rules. Kasey Michaels’ recent The Taming Of the Rake is a great example of this type of heroine, a woman who takes charge of a situation rather than submit to unjust social mores. What I object to is a heroine who’s a bitch because she enjoys it and a hero who seems to feel that’s okay.

The spoiled darling’s origins as a character are pretty clear to me—she’s Scarlett O’Hara in modern dress. And as I’ve said before, I find Scarlett herself insufferable as a heroine. The idea that there’s something attractive about bitchiness strikes me as questionable at best. Moreover, there’s a sense in which these heroines confuse bitchiness with strength, which goes beyond questionable to dangerous. Strong women are admirable and make for enjoyable heroines. Just check out Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scandals or Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s Dream a Little Dream or just about anything Jennifer Crusie has ever written. On the other hand, the idea that strength is equivalent to arrogance and insensitivity is both perverse and faintly misogynistic.

I have no real hope that the spoiled darling will disappear as a heroine. Considering how frequently she shows up, I’m guessing she must be popular with somebody somewhere After all, people still read Gone With the Wind too, so not everybody finds Scarlett as annoying as I do. I just hope that future iterations have her mending her ways sooner rather than later. After all, once that bitchiness is converted to self knowledge, she could be an interesting woman to know.

 

Six Sentence Sunday – Fearless Love

Here’s another six from my next Konigsburg book, Fearless Love. My hero, Joe LeBlanc, has just dropped in on my heroine, MG Carmody, with an impromptu invitation to dinner. MG suggests that they go out in back to watch the sunset (and her chickens). But it looks like they’re not going out after all.

“I don’t want tea right now either; or the chickens or the sunset, nice though it probably is.” He paused, watching her. “I mean, I came here to take you out to dinner, but on second thought, I don’t think I can wait that long after all.”

Her shoulders suddenly felt tight and there was an twinge in her belly. “Wait that long for what?”

“You.”

The Trouble With Time Travel

I’m a fairly eclectic romance reader. Although there are a few genres I don’t read much, I’m open to most of them and I’ve sampled lots. There’s one big exception, though: I’m just not a fan of time travel.

I think my problem with time travel is that it strikes me as a somewhat limited concept. Basically, time travelers either adapt or they don’t. Either way, you inevitably have a period where the modern person wanders around going “why are these people all dressed funny” and transgresses various cultural norms without realizing his/her mistake. The locals correct the time traveler who either figures out she’s in another era or spends an even longer period tripping over unfamiliar customs and behaving like the worst kind of tourist.

Some readers must enjoy this, given the number of time travel books that are published each year. I don’t much. I’m particularly annoyed by time travel books where the heroine is a stereotyped feminist who keeps demanding her rights while her medieval hosts prepare to burn her at the stake. As a feminist myself, I assure you we’ve got as much sense of self-preservation as the next person. If I’m surrounded by misogynists dressed in armor and carrying swords, I’m definitely going to keep my mouth shut.

Which leads me to another point. One of the not particularly subtle subtexts of time travel books is the idea that modern women would really prefer hot guys who hadn’t been ruined by modern attitudes—some hunky highlander who’ll skip the whole “sensitivity” thing. As somebody who read a lot of medieval and renaissance lit in college, I’m here to tell you that guys in the past were just as screwed up as guys are today. In addition, in past times there were a lot fewer cultural taboos about knocking women around as long as they were either spouses or women of a certain class. Being ravaged by a highlander is still being ravaged. And given the general lack of personal hygiene at the time, even mutual ravaging probably wouldn’t be all that great for somebody from this century.

Of course, you’ve also got the reverse kind of time travel book where somebody from the past ends up in the present. I may have a limited experience with this type of book, but in the ones I’ve read, the person who travels is always male. As usual, you have a period where the guy wanders around staring at the television and muttering about witchcraft—if the heroine is really unlucky, he destroys some of her electronics in order to defend himself from alien magic. This is supposed to be funny, but for me it’s usually more annoying than anything else, largely because it’s so predictable. Eventually, of course, the hero and heroine get down to the two-backed boogie, and once again we find that “real” men from the past are far better than the emasculated versions in the present. At least in this case the heroine sometimes gets the hero to take a shower before she takes him to bed, eliminating one of my complaints about the whole trope, but my previous objections still stand. Men in the past are pretty much the same as men in the present, with fewer scruples regarding women’s rights.

So give me a historical where everybody is in the right place and time. I’ll gladly read about highlanders getting it on with highland lassies, assuming those highland lassies aren’t modern archaeologists in disguise and assuming the highland lassies are fully in agreement with those highland lads as to the desirability of having sex in the heather. But please, keep the time travel for somebody else. I’m just not interested in making the trip.

Six Sentence Sunday – Fearless Love

Fearless Love is my newest Konigsburg book, due out sometime this year from Samhain Publishing. I just signed the contract last week, so this is in the nature of a quick preview. The MS is far from final, but I’m guessing the following sentences will be in it. My hero is Joe LeBlanc, the sexy chef from Don’t Forget Me. My heroine is MG Carmody, who’s having a bit of difficulty in the following excerpt:

His bald head shone with perspiration, along with his face and his biceps. Now that she looked at him, she could see the damp sweat marks on his T-shirt stretching down his broad chest—running shorts, New Balance shoes. Okay, that at least explained what the hell he was doing up and around this early in the morning, although how he came to be standing outside her chicken yard was still a bit of a mystery.

“Who are you?” she blurted.

He gave her a lazy grin. “Darlin’ you’re being attacked by a rooster; does it really matter who’s getting you out of there?”

Coming Attraction – Fearless Love

Okay, it’s official, y’all. My next Konigsburg book, Fearless Love, has been contracted, and I couldn’t be happier! I don’t have much of anything to show you–no cover, no blurb, no release date. But it’s finished, and it’s coming.

For those of you who read Don’t Forget Me, Fearless Love is Joe LeBlanc’s story. Joe, you’ll remember, is the chef at The Rose restaurant. He’s from Louisiana, and he’s been a Top Chef around the country, but he has a problematic history that was touched on in Don’t Forget Me and will be greatly expanded in Fearless Love.

Joe’s heroine is a new girl in town, MG Carmody. MG is a singer/songwriter, although she’s somewhat out of practice at her avocation. She’s also having some problems with her avaricious Great Aunt Nedda, who wants to take over the farm MG inherited from her grandfather.

I had a wonderful time writing Fearless Love because it centers on two things I love–fine cooking and Texas music. As the weeks go on, I’ll try to share a few more details, and this Sunday I’ll post a few sentences on Six Sentence Sunday (although the text isn’t exactly final yet!). Anyway, if you haven’t visited Konigsburg yet, Fearless Love would be a good place to start. And if you have visited (thank you very much!), I hope you’ll stop back again.

Six Sentence Sunday – Venus In Blue Jeans

Here’s a bit more from my first Konigsburg book, Venus In Blue Jeans. Docia and Cal (my h/h) are headed off to a dance where the citizens of Konigsburg are dressing up like the town’s earlier residents. This is Cal’s first sight of Docia in her costume.

The black satin top covered Docia’s upper body like a coat of paint. Silver roses were embroidered across her bosom, and silver lace rimmed the top edge of the bodice along the sumptuous swell of her breasts.

A great deal of sumptuous swell.

Another piece of silver lace circled her throat; she wore her hair in a topknot that looked like a cross between a Gibson girl and a can-can dancer.

She was a lonely cowboy’s dream girl—a dancehall queen with money, style and a creative imagination. She was also the hottest thing he’d seen since he’d discovered sex at age fifteen.

 

Softly, As I Leave You

A couple of weeks ago the hubs and I had dinner in a time capsule. It was a steak house on the high plains in Nebraska, but it was like wandering into fifties Vegas—zebra upholstered banquettes, thick carpeting, Sinatra on the soundtrack. A whole lotta Sinatra on the soundtrack. In fact, by the time we’d finished dinner (my annual prime rib), we’d heard most of Frank’s Greatest Hits, including “Softly, As I Leave You.”

Now “Softly” (as it’s usually known) is a legendary Sinatra tune. It’s actually an Italian pop song by Antonio Da Vita and George Calabrese translated into English by Hal Shaper. You can hear Sinatra sing it on YouTube, but lots of other people have recorded it too, including Andy Williams, Doris Day, Michael Bublé, and Shirley Horn. You can see the lyrics here.

The thing is, as I listened to the song this time, I realized something—the singer in this particular song is one prime SOB. To me, the song isn’t romantic, it’s infuriating. Maybe I was too young to understand it when I heard this the first time (and maybe back in the day those lyrics didn’t seem so bad), but boy do I understand it now.

The situation is this. The singer is leaving his Significant Other (I’m going to go with masculine pronouns here because of Sinatra, but it could just as easily be a woman). The SO is asleep and the singer doesn’t want to wake her because she’ll beg him to stay. So he’s just going to tippy-toe away before she wakes up because he can’t “bear the tears” after all the years they’ve spent together. Whether he’ll contact her after he gets wherever he’s going isn’t clear, but right now he’s outa there.

Stop and think about that for a minute. This is a long-term relationship—they’ve been together for years. But the singer is such a chickenshit that he can’t bring himself to take the time to even tell his SO he’s leaving. And why not? Because she’ll cry and it’ll get messy. Moreover, she might try to embrace him or kiss him and, well, he just couldn’t take that, it would just break his heart.

But not enough to get him to be a mensch and stick around to announce his intentions. The SO apparently has no idea this is going to happen. The singer is leaving “long before you miss me,” so we assume the SO is going to be totally in the dark when she wakes up and finds he’s no longer in his accustomed spot next to her. Given old Silver Tonsils’ aversion to unpleasantness, she may never find out exactly why she’s been dumped. He is, as I say, the very definition of a prime SOB.

Why had I never noticed before what a bastard the singer is in this song? I think it’s because the music is so lovely, and the singer’s delivery is typically so dramatic. You hear those quivering tones, those throbbing strings, and you never stop to think about just what words are being sung. But it makes me wonder how many other songs in the Great American Songbook are about jerks and cads. How many songs have I listened to over the years without really hearing them? We’re accustomed to hearing attacks on hip hop and rap, but maybe they’re not the only songs that seem to celebrate things that shouldn’t be celebrated.

At least in the case of “Softly As I Leave You”, I’m listening now. Trust me, the next time I hear it I’m going to be thinking C’mon, lady, wake up and kick his ass!