Badgwendel's Blog, page 10

Kay Thompson

If you say the name Kay Thompson, you'll most likely get blank faces. Then try mentioning the movie Funny Face (to savages like Blacklight, it's the one with Audrey Hepburn dancing in black capris that the GAP grape soda'ed with AC/DC's Back in Black) or her best selling book about an undead demon spawn sent to earth to torment the living um I mean, the darling of The Plaza Hotel, the eternally six Eloise.

But Funny Face  and Eloise were the second act of Thompson's career. Flashback to the 1930s and Kay Thompson was all over the radio, singing the hits solo or with a band of girls. And she went off to Hollywood and coached all the greats including her rumored lover/certainly best friend Judy Garland. Not too shabby for the ugly duckling daughter of pawnbroker right?

And just how did I stumble across all this juicy info about Kay Thompson? It was late April, Blacklight and I are in the Book Barn Downtown killing time during The Great Window Replacement of 2011. I have a shiny new iPhone (a lovely 3GS, don't have iPhone 4 monies). Blacklight has an iced Dunkee Cup the size of his head. As Blacklight and his giant Dunkee Cup scamper damper off to see what horrific Stephen R. Donaldson wonders might be lurking in the stacks, I'm headed towards the humor section when BAMMO WHAMMO I ALMOST STEP ON A BOOK! Sam Irvin's Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise.

So of course I pick it up. Like what I see, but the price is a little high. $7 for a used copy can also buy 1.33 lbs of my favorite Chinese buffett (Blacklight: "Oh, a light snack ?") Or two Starbucks Passion Tea Lemonades. I'm all "dang I wish I had a piece of paper to write down the ISBN….dummy….YOU HAVE AN IPHONE NOW!". Cue me standing in the middle of the film aisle tapping at my iPhone with little sausage fingers and putting Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise on my inter library loan list! Go Mr iPhone Go Mr iPhone!

Maybe I should have splashed out the $7 at the Book Barn Downtown because my goodness gracious, Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise  is chock full of awesome. I always thought Kay Thompson was some WASPy blonde from New England. Nope, Kay Thompson may have been the greatest creation to EVER spring from Kitty Fink's fertile brain.

Her grit and determination made her a star several times over THREE DECADES. She knew how to work the system. Golly, I love Hondas! Dear Honda, can I have a silver 4 door 2011 Honda Accord if I name drop Honda in every blog post? NO? Damnnnnnn….Kay Thompson would have gotten the whole damn Honda fleet! With leather and gold trim! And you can't walk into the children's section of a bookstore and NOT find Eloise! Ignore the plump brunette in glasses clutching her pink clad Mr iPhone who is rocking back and forth like she's just sat through the entire Sex and the City thing INCLUDING BOTH MOVIES!

Like her fellow best-selling children's book featuring unholy demon spawns bearing torment and eternal suffering to all those who stumble into their orbits I mean, an enchanting blonde who lives in a fantastic world author Dare Wright, Kay Thompson's later years marked a major decline. Remember how Dare Wright looked like an ancient Barbie doll? Kay Thompson looked like a walking skeleton. Luckily, Kay Thompson didn't die in a hospital alone but spent her final years much loved by her god-daughter Liza Minnelli who went so far as to allow her godmother to take over her one bedroom New York apartment for years. Now remember, Kay Thompson wasn't the easiest person to deal with. Eloise illustrator Hillary Knight got majorly grape soda'ed by his dealings with Thompson. Miss Kay wasn't afraid to sue or take full credit when it came to her projects. So add that to an INSANE New York City housing market and you can totally give Liza Minnelli a pass for her whiskey tango foxtrot union with David Gest.

Once you read about Kay Thompson, her life story will stick with you. Heck, it's been three weeks since I cracked open Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise  and went down the rabbit hole and I DIDN'T EVEN HAVE TO CRACK OPEN THE BOOK TO REFRESH MY MEMORY OF IT. I read lots of books. LOTS OF BOOKS. Usually I have to peek at least once or twice when I'm blogging! So Bravo! Good job, Sam Irvin, good job.

Filed under: biography, bitch be crazy, book review, Eloise, git paid girl, Kay Thompson, Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise, Sam Irvin

Big Sex, Little Death

File this under "Books Blacklight Picked Up And Went HUH?". Blacklight is a sweetie but as far as he knows Susie Bright is a character from an Archie comic. Blacklight avoids the section of Barnes & Noble were Susie Bright's books live like the plague. So combine his lack of knowledge about Susie Bright along with a title like Big Sex, Little Death and a HUH? isn't exactly a surprise. Remember he's the one who calls The Ladies of Missalonghi  "The Ladies of Miss Bong Gee".

Contrary to Blacklight's confusion ("Is this about a hooker turned killer?") which after me reading things like The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness back to back isn't that bizarre, Big Sex, Little Death is how teen activist Susannah Bright became Susie Sexpert Susie Bright best selling author. It's that story.

And it's the story of a mother who dragged herself out of a horrendous background with sheer brains and wit. In some ways Susie Bright's mother Elizabeth reminds me of Judith Krantz's mother Mickey. Two brilliant women who might have been better off not having children. And a father who wasn't a farmer like his father but still cherished and loved by his family.

I'm going to be very honest and admit that Susie's years as an activist/worker where the chapters I trudged through. And shuddered. The crazed Earl almost killing Marty Breyers. Yikes! That made me jump AND put the book down and wonder if I would just stop there. But a couple of hours later, I was back on Mr Couch plowing through the rest. Susie's friendship with the dancers at Lusty Lady and her jobs at Good Vibrations and On Our Backs reminded me of Lily Burana's Strip City. And when you reach the point where Susie is fired/quits On Our Backs, her pain and sadness is so strong it reaches right through the pages.

Big Sex, Little Death isn't my usual reading fare, but even with the parts that made me almost not finish the book, it's worth a read.

Filed under: book review Tagged: Big Sex, Little Death, Susie Bright

The Caleb Carr Code

Books that combine my interests in history, true crime and epics seem to fall off the shelves. Let's face it, there's a ready crop of these bricks at the book sales and used book shops. But what makes something worth a read and only good enough to prop open the old windows in my apartment?

The book has to have a spark, a strong historical background and not feel like the author is playing with paper dolls. So if anyone asked me "Hey Gwen what's a good historical read?", Caleb Carr would definitely be on the short list.  The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness will keep you pinned to Mr Couch until the bitter end, emerging back into the real world at 1:30 am going "Frosted Pop Tart, I gotta be at work in 5 and half hours!" while Blacklight pops out of his lair on a beer mission asking "hey, what are YOU doing awake?". Duh, reading!

And on the way to training this week, listening to the Edward Herrman narrated abridged audiobook of The Alienist it struck me. Not another car! A thought beyond "do I get Starbucks now or go to Target and get it during lunch?"  and "I wonder just how bad it would be to make a sausage "double down" sandwich?". Those are valid thoughts (answers: wait until lunch and NO because I want to live to see 40). The Caleb Carr thought was "gee…The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness are pretty much the same. Awesome on their own, but still, I could write a third book in the series myself"

The Caleb Carr Code Breakdown…

****WARNING*** SPOILERS BELOW****READ AT YOUR OWN RISK*****

The team/The X-Men:

Dr Kreizler /Professor X: disabled leader who forms a team of experts, has his own institute/school for "troubled" youths
Stevie Taggart/Wolverine: small, strong, likes his tobacco, legendary for brawn, one of Kreizler's most trusted men
John Schuyler Moore/Tony Stark: drunken, high society lady killer, uses his money and journalist connections to help the team solve problems but gets in trouble along the way
Sara Howard/Pepper Potts: the only woman on the team, driven, handy with a gun that she keeps hidden somewhere on her person, don't mess with her, does not take ANY of John's bull for a moment
The Detectives Marcus and Lucius Isaacson/The Beast: big, muscle bound, cultured, and brilliant. Always update on the latest, cutting edge forensics

The Crime: always involves a child victim(s). Boy prostitutes in The Alienist and kidnapped children in The Angel of Darkness.

The Villain: Smart, clever, tricksy with a bad childhood involving premature sexuality and being under close watch by parents. The Villain also has real life true crime parallels/inspirations.

John Beecham/Japheth Dury (The Alienist): loner male who targets boy prostitutes and leaves very messy/graphic crime scenes. Subjected to intensive mental and verbal abuse by his mother until he was a teenager. Possible real life inspirations: Jeffrey Dahmer, Albert Fish, Jack The Ripper, Jesse Pomeroy, Mary Bell
Elspeth Hunter/Libby Fraser/Libby Franklin (The Angel of Darkness) : nurse with tragic past involving murdered children and dead spouse. Possible real life inspirations: Diane Downs, Marybeth Tinning, Waneta Hoyt and Genene Jones

The Hunt: follow leads upstate, find out the villain's secret and true name.

The Alienist:The young Japheth Dury was torturing small animals, raped by an older man who his brother trusted on a camping trip, killed his parents and made it seem like Native Americans from the West killed the elder Durys as a revenge killing.
The Angel of Darkness: Libby Franklin gave birth to an illegitimate child, killed said child, assumed the name Libby Fraser, caused the death of an infant and it's father, married an older man, bore three children, two of which died after being shot by a "stranger" after her husband's death. Libby isn't the maternal type but she'll try and try again even if it means innocent children die.

The The End: final showdown with the villain results in the team almost being killed, the latest victim being rescued, but the villain dying before they can be brought to justice. Dr Kreizler is saddened that he could not study the villain further.

The Alienist: John Beecham/Japheth Dury gets shot by Connor and dies. Kreizler does an autopsy but finds nothing unusual about the brain.
The Angel of Darkness: Elspeth Hunter/Libby Fraser/Libby Franklin dies from a poison dart (you are GOING TO HAVE TO READ THE BOOK!). Baby Ana is found safe and special guest Teddy Roosevelt rides to the rescue. Go Teddy Go!


So if Caleb Carr never wrote another book in the series what would my idea be? How about something with a Black Widow killer like Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez with a little Belle Gunness  tossed in with Sara Howard as narrator? Get on it Caleb Carr before I do!


Filed under: Blast From The Past, book review, Books I Loved Back in the Day, Books That Haunt You, Caleb Carr, historical novel, history, history buff, history mystery, The Alienist, The Angel of Darkness, Uncategorized

All Facts Considered

There are books I can't resist. Trust me, I have the credit card statements and library borrowing records to prove it. If Blacklight loses me in Barnes & Noble, he checks the coffee bar and then the Reference Section for me. Because, Dear Readers, my name is Gwen Mrs Blacklight and I'm a reference junkie. Style guides, etiquette guides and trivia guides are my crack, my Sam Adams Boston Ale, my Dunkee Cup, my Hershey's Kisses, my Starbucks. When I see one, I HAVE TO HAVE IT. Or haunt the libraries and the Book Barn until one falls into my lap.

So imagine my glee when I came across a truly nerd-tastic book called All Facts Considered: The Essential Library of Inessential Knowledge by NPR librarian Kee Malesky. Imagine having that job? Bliss, pure bliss! Now there are trivia books and there are trivia books. If you loved the Schott's Miscellany or The 5 W's series, then here's a book for you. A few tidbits had me counting on my fingers and muttering "no, that is right, wow".

How awesome is this book? Even Blacklight would read it. And you know Blacklight and I have very very very different reading tastes.

Filed under: All Facts Considered, book review, Kee Malesky, nerd-tastic, NPR, trivia

The Clan of the Cave Bear

True story. I'm a brand spanking new freshman. And of course I'm haunting the library every day. I find The Plains of Passage on the New Fiction shelves and almost trip over my damn feet racing to the circulation desk to check it out. That was mumblemumbletwentyyearsagomumblemumble. Now I'm not so sure I'm going to be racing to the circulation desk when the N library gets the final Earth's Children book. Don't get me wrong. I know Jean Auel researches her books like a melon farmer (see I don't curse all the frosted pop tart time!). But if I do linger by the AU fiction shelves at the library, I'm not scooping every Jean Auel book into my bag. First, them books weigh a TON! And second, Ayla, our fair heroine Cro-Mag of all Cro-Mags, makes me stabby. Maybe it's the constant Ayla is a smoking hot babe, Ayla invents EVERYTHING, Ayla is the AWESOME SAUCE, and the beyond explicit humpa-jumpa that starts mid-way through The Valley of Horses. So no big surprise my favorite Earth's Children novel is The Clan of the Cave Bear. It's the first and best of all, I barely want to fling it at the new windows.

For those who've managed to never encountered The Clan of the Cave Bear and mind you EVEN BLACKLIGHT HAS READ THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR, it's the story of an orphaned modern human little girl saved from certain death from infection, hunger and exposure by a group of Neanderthals (The Clan) who find her as they search for a new home.  The majority of The Clan, a hard working, strong, heavily gender split people come to accept the little girl, renamed Ayla as best as they can. It's like a pack of wolves adopting a Shitzu puppy. They're closely enough related but still oceans apart in understanding and culture. Things will muddle along but it will all end in tears. And on the last page it sure does.

The Clan of the Cave Bear is just such a sad book. The Clan is marching towards an extinction caused by their particular evolutionary niche. And Ayla, no matter what she does or what happens to her, will never become a true Clan member. That Shitzu isn't going to be a lean, mean critter no matter how long Fluffy McPrincess Poofy Poo spends with the wolves. Fluffy McPrincess Poofy Poo is a walking dustmop. Only Fluffy McPrincess Poofy Poo will be eagle food before five plus books filled with Fluffy McPrincess Poofy Poo is the awesome can be spawned.

So to wrap it up (and to stop tying Ayla or Fluffy McPrincess Poofy Poo again), The Clan of the Cave Bear, good but sad. Jean did her research and I like that! Go Jean Go! Ayla (okay, one last time!) bye-bye. The rest of the Earth's Children series, only if am so drunkalunk that American Idol becomes my favorite show.

Filed under: Blast From The Past, book review, Books I Loved Back in the Day, c-i-l-l me now!, Earth's Children, Jean M. Auel, The Clan of the Cave Bear

The Handmaid’s Tale

Remember how back in the day you came across a book that was just beyond awesome? Something in a world and time not far off from your own, something that might just be around the corner? And then years later, you’re roaming the stacks at the library, pick up the book and flip through it and curse the day that it became a summer reading for the clever high school student and think people who underline/write in pen/highlight a library book should be shot? Oh…just me? Like I’m the only person who wants to lose themselves in book and NOT have “so true” and “LIAR” or “men are bad, women are worse” popping out of the margins.

So what inspired the above rant? Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The 1980s cult classic of a future North America under the grip of a totalitarian rule with the female population stripped of basic rights (having money in their own names, jobs outside the home,birth control) and certain women moved from household to household to try and give high ranking childless couples  children. Awesome book back in the day, still gripping twenty five plus years later. However the library copy I checked out was filled with all kinds of little “love notes”. SO ANNOYING. Please do me and libraries a favor. If It Ain’t Your Book DO NOT WRITE IN IT! GO TO A USED BOOK STORE! OR BETTER YET A LIBRARY BOOK SALE! End Rant!

Filed under: Blast From The Past, book review, Books I Loved Back in the Day, Books That Haunt You, library, Library Raid, Margaret Atwood, Rant, The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale

Remember how back in the day you came across a book that was just beyond awesome? Something in a world and time not far off from your own, something that might just be around the corner? And then years later, you're roaming the stacks at the library, pick up the book and flip through it and curse the day that it became a summer reading for the clever high school student and think people who underline/write in pen/highlight a library book should be shot? Oh…just me? Like I'm the only person who wants to lose themselves in book and NOT have "so true" and "LIAR" or "men are bad, women are worse" popping out of the margins.

So what inspired the above rant? Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. The 1980s cult classic of a future North America under the grip of a totalitarian rule with the female population stripped of basic rights (having money in their own names, jobs outside the home,birth control) and certain women moved from household to household to try and give high ranking childless couples  children. Awesome book back in the day, still gripping twenty five plus years later. However the library copy I checked out was filled with all kinds of little "love notes". SO ANNOYING. Please do me and libraries a favor. If It Ain't Your Book DO NOT WRITE IN IT! GO TO A USED BOOK STORE! OR BETTER YET A LIBRARY BOOK SALE! End Rant!

Filed under: Blast From The Past, book review, Books I Loved Back in the Day, Books That Haunt You, library, Library Raid, Margaret Atwood, Rant, The Handmaid's Tale

Helene Hanff: Underfoot in Show Business

For every big star or even middling star there's hundreds of people clinging to a slight handhold in show business. Underfoot in Show Business is the story of one of the faceless ones, a mousy little playwright from Philadelphia named Helene Hanff. Now if you're a certain kind of reader (Blacklight: "Angophile NERD! Like you!" Me: death stare from Mr Couch), Helene Hanff is the author of the charming 84, Charing Cross Road. But between letters to Marks & Co., Helene lived in hall bedrooms and tiny studio apartments, writing plays that lurked in the depths of agents Dead Files, working as an outside studio reader and writing television scripts never quite living up to her initial Big Break.

And what was that pre-84, Charing Cross Road Big Break? A very young Helene Hanff entered the Bureau of New Plays contests. The prize? Two $1,500 fellowships and the guiding hand of the Theatre Guild. And at a stroke Helene went from passionate theater goer to being a member of the theater itself along the way collecting her lifelong friend/actress Maxine and the seeds of 84, Charing Cross Road. Even though she never becomes a wild success like the previous fellowship winners Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, she manages to secure a foothold and never gives up her dreams of becoming a playwright.

This book isn't targeted to the Blacklights of the world (sorry honey!) or the Tichys (dude!). It's a book for the theater geeks, the early television geeks and the Helene Hanff fanboys/fangirls. It is a charming look at the last great days of the theater and movies before television took over. If you're certain type of reader (zip it Blacklight, I mean it!) then hunt down Underfoot in Show Business. The inter-library loan is worth it.

Filed under: 84 Charing Cross Road, Blacklight, book review, Books I Loved Back in the Day, Buy or Check It Out, charming, From The Library Stacks, Helene Hanff, memoir, New York, Not For Blacklight, offbeat, the theater, Underfoot in Show Business