Lars and the Real Girl (and other stories)

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Last December, I saw Lars and the Real Girl (2007) in the theatre, and then again yesterday on DVD. This film is really charming, with a strong story line and a pitch-perfect cast. Nancy Oliver's screenplay was nominated for an Oscar and several other awards, and Ryan Gosling and Emily Mortimer also received recognition for their respective roles.

One of Ryan Gosling's earlier movies, Half Nelson (2006), is also one of my current favorites. It's a lot darker than Lars but also an intensely well-crafted piece with its own string of award nominations/wins.

To add to this tangential list, one of Emily Mortimer's earlier movies, Lovely and Amazing (2001), also features really strong performances from her, Catherine Keener, and virtually everyone else in the movie, including a young Jake Gyllenhaal. This movie was written and directed by Nicole Holofcener and was described in one quote on the cover as a "witty moving comedy!" Lovely and Amazing was witty, and it was moving, but in my opinion, it was definitely more of a drama.

Stranger Than Fiction (2006) featured Will Ferrell in a straight role. I think the man is a talented comedian, but after watching him on Saturday Night Live and later in a string of occasionally funny comedies, I wasn't sure he could carry this off. I was very pleasantly surprised by his acting in this movie. Maggie Gyllenhaal (Jake's sister) played the baker that Will Ferrell's IRS agent character is auditing, and Emma Thompson played an author with writer's block.

I don't know if I can continue the connect-the-actors element of this post, but there are a few other strong scripts I'd like to add to the list:

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, and--in a minor role--Mark Ruffalo),

The Truman Show (1998, also starring Jim Carrey and the lovely Laura Linney, who starred in 2000's You Can Count on Me with Mark Ruffalo),

Love Actually (2003, with a large ensemble cast including Emma Thompson, Laura Linney, Colin Firth, and Hugh Grant),

Sideways (2004, with the underappreciated Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen, and Sandra Oh),

and Little Miss Sunshine (2006, with Abigail Breslin, Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Alan Arkin as the grandfather you might not want your kids to hear, the incomparable Steve Carell, and Bryan Cranston in a small but pivotal role).

Happy Poetry Month! (Part 2)

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A couple of days ago, I posted links to some poetry online, and today I wanted to highlight some alternatives to traditional print reading:

Visit Born Magazine, "an experimental venue marrying literary arts and interactive media." One of Born Magazine's recent collaborations featured a poem called "What Afterlife" by Keetje Kuipers paired with an interactive design by Andrew Kostuik. In addition to the multimedia version, there is an option to view the poem in a static form.

Sign up for Knopf's Poem-a-Day mailing list and receive one poem via e-mail on each day in April. To subscribe, send a blank e-mail message to sub_knopfpoetry (at) info.randomhouse.com or visit www.randomhouse.com/knopf/poetry/poemaday.
The first poem to be featured this year was "A Phone Call from the Future" by Mary Jo Salter, from her book A Phone Call to the Future: New & Selected Poems. Knopf's site also has links to the poems, broadsides, and a podcast, which includes Mary Jo Salter reading this poem.

Listen to more poets reading on the web. The April is National Poetry Month podcast features a number of poets reading and discussing their own work. One of my favorite poems I've heard so far was "The Big Picture" by Ellen Bass. (You can get to this one by scrolling down toward the bottom of the page and clicking on the accompanying Play button.)

Become a vector (or just print a lovely broadside for yourself) at Broadsided. Their current feature is "Among Trees (or) The Heart Is a Bee Hive" with art by Elizabeth Terhune and poetry by Cindy St. John. (Please click here to view this broadside as a pdf).

Then, when you're tired of cruising around on the web, go outside! It's finally April. Walk to your local bookstore and buy a literary journal or a book of poetry, or attend a reading or other event celebrating Poetry Month. The Academy of American Poets has a calendar of events happening throughout the United States, and the League of Canadian Poets has a readings calendar for Canada.

Happy Poetry Month!

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Now that we're into April, I wanted to post links to some poetry:

"Purple Peruvian Potatoes" by Rosa Salazar (a poem from r.kv.r.y., Winter 2008)

"The Lake Oswego Girls' Soccer Team at the Hilton Pool" by Keetje Kuipers (a poem from From the Fishouse, December 2006)

"The Sleepwalker's Wife" by Zachary Greenwald (a poem from The 2River View, Summer 2006)

"Swallowed" by Anne Haines (a poem from Valparaiso Poetry Review, Spring/Summer 2007, and reprinted in Best of the Net 2007)

"Dreaming Your Death" by Karen Buckley (a poem from Orbis, Spring 2005)

"she told me her mother slept with a revolver" by Justin Hyde (a poem from The Orange Room Review, October 2007)

Money and Class in America

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Penguin had a table at the book fair in New York City, and one of the books I bought was a collection called The Haves and Have-Nots: 30 Stories About Money and Class in America (edited by Barbara Solomon).

A couple of weeks ago, then, while I was still in the middle of The Haves and Have-Nots, I found a copy of The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. This is a compulsively readable book, and a video of the author discussing it can be found on the website for Simon & Schuster (simonsays.com) and apparently also on Amazon.

The Glass Castle has its dark moments, but in a larger sense it is about resilience, and what it means to be a parent, and the effect alcohol and other vices can have on a family. Again, too, it is about money and class in America.

When I finished it, I finally got a copy of a book I've been meaning to read since it was published in 2001, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. I'd highly recommend this book, which is, to use one of the author's most poetic lines, about "the juxtaposition of terrible heat and cool, inaccessible water" (p. 88).

The Spring 2008 issue of the Apple Valley Review

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The Spring 2008 issue of the journal features fiction by Kathy Anderson and John Lowry; poetry by Pat Daneman, Anna Evans, Lucia Zimmitti, Laurie Junkins, Brian R. Lutz, Lyn Lifshin, David N. DeVries, Elizabeth Barbato, Lori Huskey, George Moore, Tammy Ho Lai-ming, Julie L. Moore, and Mark Thalman; and artwork by Cynthia Tom.

The Apple Valley Review is a semiannual online literary journal. The current issue, previous issues, subscription information, and complete submission guidelines are available at www.applevalleyreview.com.

AWP in NYC

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On Sunday, I returned from the AWP conference in New York City. It was an amazing experience all around, and I was able to hear readings by some of my favorite writers. This seems like a great excuse to post links to some of their work.

Billy Collins read on Saturday afternoon, and he was paired with Frank McCourt (Angela's Ashes). The two men were good friends, and they were both wildly entertaining readers. I enjoyed everything they read, but the piece that sticks out in my mind is one of Billy Collins' poems, "The Lanyard." This has always been one of my favorites, but his delivery made it ten times better. The long pause before "and I gave her a lanyard" left me laughing so hard I cried.
Link: The Trouble with Poetry: And Other Poems (which includes "The Lanyard") by Billy Collins.

I was really, really looking forward to the reading by Joyce Carol Oates. Seriously. I sat outside the room for the entire previous session so that I could dash in and get a good seat for her reading. And it was worth it. I can't imagine anything more gracious than the way she began her speech: "It's a pleasure to be in the company of so many fellow writers."
Link: Joyce Carol Oates' new novel, The Gravedigger's Daughter.

Mark Strand. The woman I was sitting next to at the Mark Strand reading asked if I had ever heard him read before. When I said no, she said, "You're in for a treat." He was tall and elegant, and had a voice to match.
Link: The book that made me a fan of Mark Strand, Blizzard of One.

I hadn't seen Julianna Baggott in person in about nine years. She was as lovely and sweet as ever, and I really enjoyed catching up with her again. She participated in a couple of panels and signed copies of her newest book, Compulsions of Silkworms and Bees, on Friday afternoon at the bookfair. 

Link: Julianna Baggott's first collection of poetry, This Country of Mothers. 

Sharon Olds has a beautiful voice. I was one of the 100+ people sitting or standing at the back of the room during her reading, and I was too far away to see her clearly, but she had a microphone and she sounded terrific. 

Link: In addition to some more recent work, Sharon Olds read the poem that I always think of when I think of her, "I Go Back to May 1937." 

Amy Bloom is one of my all-time favorite writers (please see my previous blog entry for more about her and her new novel, Away). On Thursday morning, I attended a panel subtitled "Being Crazy Doesn't Make You Interesting" (an evocative title that was apparently her idea). This was a good panel in general, and I discovered that she's as interesting in person as she is on the page. 

Link: Amy Bloom's first published collection of short stories, Come to Me.

Amy Bloom's New Novel

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Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I read Amy Bloom's new novel, Away.

There are times when the reviews or blurbs for a novel can be more elegantly written than the text of the book itself. In this case, Away was described as a "beautiful, effulgent book" (Ron Carlson), "amazingly dense" (Kirkus Reviews), "raunchy, funny, and touching" (Caryl Phillips), "urgent, riveting, fabulously entertaining" (Emma Donoghue), and a "book full of tender wisdom, brawling insight, sharp-edged humor, and--if it's possible--a lovely, wayward precision" (Colum McCann). Christopher Tilghman said that "Amy Bloom's work has always revolved around what love and desire can make us do. In Away, she paints filial love on an immense geographic and historical canvas. The result, a story of loss and survival, is gripping."

I've been a fan of Amy Bloom's work since I read her first short story collection, Come to Me, and I'd been anxiously awaiting the release of Away. Even so, the blurbs were so effusive that I actually felt skeptical before I'd even turned to page 1.

Now, though, I think this is one of those rare instances where the praise seems, if anything, inadequate. The book isn't for everyone--it's rife with coarse language, very dark themes, etc.--but she handles the material deftly.

Anyway, I'm not even going to attempt to spin a poetic web of praise for the novel. Here's what I have to say: I read it feverishly within a span of 24 hours, and now it's several days later, and I'm still thinking about the book. That's about the highest praise I can give.

It may not mean as much out of context, but this quote--about a woman who is physically alive yet emotionally dead, and haunted by memories and thoughts of loved ones who are physically dead--was my favorite from the book:

"But here, in the basement of the Goldfadn [Theatre], among the dead, it doesn't seem to be a question. She can feel them underneath her, pushing at her, pressing at the backs of her knees, lifting her up and out of the grave. Yaakov, closest to the top, straightens her skirt and brushes a last crumbled leaf from her cheek, so she can join the living, not just to do what they do, which even the dead can manage, but to feel what they feel and keep on, which even the living find hard." (quoted from Away by Amy Bloom, page 82 in hardcover)