Review of The Notebook, directed by Nick Cassavetes, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks.

An elderly woman (Gena Rowlands) stands, looking out of the nursing home window. An elderly man (James Garner) visits her. She doesn’t know him, but he clearly considers her an old friend. He reads to her a story from a small notebook, a story about young Noah (Ryan Gosling) and his one true love Allie (Rachel McAdams). They fell madly in love one summer. But she comes from a rich family, and her mother doesn’t want her marrying below her class. Allie gets not even one of Noah’s letters. She falls in love with and gets engaged to a handsome busnessman, with her parents’ full support.

Meanwhile, with a big hole in his heart, Noah buys and rebuilds a 200-year-old house, his dream house. It had been his dream even before it was his and Allie’s dream. And now this dream is all he has of her.

Recounting this plot makes me feel a little like crying. Of course, Noah and Allie encounter each other again. And when they do, it is a tense moment indeed. Their longings and struggles are the best and worst of first love.

The man and woman in the nursing home are also not just there as an excuse to tell the story of Noah and Allie. They have their own story as well. Who are they? Why doesn’t she know him? Why does he sit and read to her? This is just for starters. That story made me cry, too, by the way. The Notebook is a story within a story, a two-barreled romance.

The film is rated PG-13 for sex. It’s also a little on the long side, a little over 2 hours. And at times, the story dragged. All outstanding conflicts seemed to be resolved. I felt like the story should be over. I wondered why I was still watching, why I cared about what was happening on the screen.

All said, I enjoyed The Notebook and fully recommend it as a heart-stabbing, romantic tear-jerker.

The Notebook
directed by Nick Cassavetes
Rated PG-13 for some sexuality
US movie release: June 25, 2004
US DVD release: February 8, 2005
Run time: 124 minutes

Note also the novel by Nicholas Sparks.

P.S. Here’s the Notebook trailer:

Do you love good writing? Do you want to learn to write? Check out fantasy author Holly Lisle’s website.

For readers

• excerpts from her novels
• complete, on-line editions of Fire In the Mist and Sympathy for the Devil
• short stories, poetry, cover art, and more

Also, in her on-line store are a couple novels you can buy in as an eBook download.

For writers

One of the things I love about Holly Lisle’s advice on writing is her concrete, practical approach. She doesn’t tell you to write a thousand pieces of crap, throw them all against the wall, and see what sticks. She gives real advice you can take to the bank now.

• How to Write FAQ
• Publishing FAQ
• Worldbuilding FAQ
• Scam-Spotting
• Book Is Not Baby
• Who WON’T Make It
• Writers’ Quiz
• How to Quit Your Day Job
• and much, much more

Also, in her on-line store, check out the Character Clinic, which is one of my favorite resources for generating character ideas and making fictional characters seem like real people. She also has other books for writers, all available as eBook downloads.

Holly Lisle founded the Forward Motion writer’s community.

Her blog and podcast

Her blog is called Pocket Full of Words.

She also has a podcast, Holly Lisle On Writing.

Who is Holly Lisle?

As a kid, her dream was to become a famous artist. After high school, she worked at a newspaper selling advertising. Then she went to sign-painting, teaching guitar, and McDonald’s, then penultimately into nursing. Ironically, this all prepared her for a career as a novelist. Read her short biography.

-TimK

A review of Smilla’s Sense of Snow, the movie.

I first encountered this underappreciated sci-fi mystery flick when Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave it two thumbs up in 1997. Smilla’s Sense of Snow stars Julia Ormond and Gabriel Byrne and is based on the novel by Peter Høeg of the same name. And of course, now we can see it on DVD.

Smilla Jaspersen is a resident of Copenhagen, but she grew up in Greenland. She comes home one day to find the little boy from the apartment below hers. He is lying face-down on the sidewalk, having fallen from playing on the roof of the building. The young boy Isaiah was not just her neighbor; he was also her friend, probably her only true friend. And immediately, Smilla knows that something is terribly wrong. You see, Isaiah was scared of heights. She goes to the snow-covered roof to investigate, to see for herself. The police rebuff her, but to Smilla the evidence is clear. Isaiah was not playing on the roof. He was running from something, something so terrible that he ran right off the edge. She can tell from his tracks in the snow.

Near the end of the story, the plot gets a little crazy, and Siskel and Ebert had noted the crazy plot. But all I remembered from their review was snow and intrigue, a romantic image inspired by the cinematography. Directed by Bille August, indeed the film shines as art in its own right, even without a plot. Still, years after having watched the movie, reflecting back, all I remembered of it were the characters. Now, watching it again recently, I realized that it was the crazy plot itself that made these characters real.

Actually, the plot is not all that bad. Smilla’s Sense of Snow is a sci-fi flick wrapped up in an Hitchcockian thriller. The plot is full of twists and turns. And it all makes sense… if you accept the ending. Whether you do or not, however, Smilla accepts that ending, and that’s why, to echo Roger Ebert, “The plot is totally absurd, and I didn’t care that it was!” Actually, Smilla may or may not accept the ending. She may or may not even care. By the time the ending comes, she has invested so much of herself in her quest to find out who killed Isaiah, the screwy plot only serves to highlight her commitment to this passion.

The film makes exceptional use of strong language. Early on, Smilla says, “I’m sorry I’ve given you the impression it’s my mouth that’s rough. I try to be rough all over.” It’s rated R for strong language, some violence, and a sex scene. But none of it is superfluous. It all just serves to heighten the powerful mood.

Smilla’s Sense of Snow is not mainstream, as it sports neither the massive, glitzy, overdone special effects nor the shallowness of the ’90′s sci-fi movie. But watching it was an extremely enjoyable experience for me, one that I have repeated numerous times and will repeat in the future.

Smilla’s Sense of Snow
Rating: R (Restricted)
Theatrical release: 1997
DVD Release: May 21, 2002
Run Time: 121 minutes

Note also:

• Siskel and Ebert’s 1997 review
• IMDb page

“Someone was looking at me, a disturbing sensation if you’re dead.”

If I tried really hard, I might be able to find something wrong with this story. But why would I want to work that hard? After just finishing A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb, already I want to start over again from the beginning. So seldom do I run across a story this well put together, I can’t help but gush a little. I even emailed Laura Whitcomb to tell her how much I enjoyed it.

What the story is about

Helen has been haunting the living for a hundred thirty years now. She is gentle, caring, not malevolent, simply lost. And lonely. She takes what little companionship she can from her hosts, the people she has haunted. But she still can’t touch them or talk to them. To them, she’s not even as solid as the air.

Then she meets James, another ghost left to haunt the Earth. James is in the body of teenage boy named Billy Blake. Billy’s soul had left his body. Something drove it out. Not just “something.” It’s clear what events in Billy’s life caused this.

Helen and James fall in love, but she still can’t touch him, feel him. Until they find a girl named Jenny, whose soul has also left her body. Now they must wrestle with their new lives, their feelings, and their old lives too. And what will they do when it comes time to leave these bodies?

Sympathetic characters, powerful story

At every point during the story, I sympathized with Helen and felt I was part of her world. Laura Whitcomb clearly knows how to make her characters real. And where other writers might be tempted to pull them out of character in order to push the plot forward, she makes her characters want to do what they do, and the plot comes along with them.

For example, when James tells Helen they must eventually leave the bodies they inhabit, I immediately thought, Ah, but how are you going pull that off? You can’t force Helen to leave Jenny’s body, because we sympathize with Helen, and we would feel cheated if she were merely forced against her will to give up what she loves. But Laura handles this situation like a master. First she takes away the reason Helen is in Jenny’s body, then she gives Helen a noble reason to want Jenny to take back her own body. The way this panned out made perfect sense, but I never saw it coming.

I’ve read novels in which the author builds up the conflict, builds the tension, puts the characters in impossible situations, and then doesn’t know how to get them out. So he invokes deus ex machina (or some variation), and I end up feeling cheated. But as I was reading A Certain Slant of Light, I knew my effort was to be well rewarded. And I am looking forward to Laura Whitcomb’s second novel, which she is currently writing.

Yes, A Certain Slant of Light is Laura Whitcomb’s first novel. I have a prediction: If she gets past novel number 3, she’ll be famous.

Who should not read this book

This is a medium-length novel, advertised as for teenagers. Adults have disagreed about whether it is actually suitable for teenagers, although what they mean is “suitable for their teenagers.” Use parental discretion, and be prepared to discuss.

In any case, if you can’t stand dark fiction, if you get bent out of shape by the portrayal of sex, or by ghosts or spirit possession, or if you’d get too upset that one of the antagonists is a fundamentalist Christian hypocrite— If any of these things would bug you so much that you wouldn’t be able to put them in the context of the story, you probably won’t enjoy this book no matter how good the story is.

Laura clearly called on the fundamentalist stereotype as a basis for Jenny’s family. Writers call on stereotypes all the time to give a broad basis to characters and settings. But remember that Laura is not describing fundamentalists. She’s describing Jenny. Actually, she’s describing the milieu that Helen enters when she takes Jenny’s body. I myself had to remind myself of that, since the portrayal was indeed negative. Even fundamentalists love their kids. And like other parents, they tend not to restrict and discipline their children to the point of abuse, to the point of squeezing the soul from the body. This is an exceptional case. But it fits the story.

This is true of all of these plot devices. They are never there to try to spice up the work. This story does not need to be spiced up. It pulls along whatever elements are necessary to make it work.

Conclusion

In summary, a truly great read. I have no suggestions for improvement. I suck.

A Certain Slant of Light
by Laura Whitcomb
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Graphia (September 21, 2005)
ISBN: 061858532X

A review of Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech.

When I first read the first chapter of Walk Two Moons, the Newbery Medal award-winning juvenile novel by Sharon Creech, I didn’t quite realize what I was getting into. You can read it yourself, preview the first chapter at Amazon.com. Now after having read the whole book, reading these first few pages makes me tear up a little.

This is the second book by Sharon Creech that I’ve read recently. The first was Heartbeat, a much shorter story told in a unique style. Walk Two Moons is a more traditional, 280-page novel, but no less worthy of note.

It’s the story of Sal, a 13-year-old girl traveling with her grandparents to Lewiston, Idaho to see her mother. On the way, she tells them of all that happened after she and her father moved to Euclid, Ohio. They moved when they found out her mother was not coming home again. In Euclid, she met a girl named Pheobe, but what she didn’t realize at the time was that Pheobe’s story was hers, too.

Behind these interwoven tales are all the feelings of a young teenage girl when her mother goes away and may not come back, or will not come back.

The story is targeted at girls aged 9-12, but it may also be appropriate for young teens. I enjoyed it, too, but I have broad tastes, except when it comes to the quality of the story. And good, solid storytelling characterize this novel through its multiple, interwoven subplots and strong character development.

There’s Pheobe, Sal’s paranoid friend, whose own mother has a secret. There’s the strange red-headed woman, Margaret Cadaver, whom Sal’s father has oddly befriended. And there’s the blind Mrs. Partridge, Margaret’s elderly mother, who can tell who you are and how old you are just by touching your face. And we also learn about Sal’s close relationship with her mother and why it’s so difficult to accept that her mother isn’t coming home again, and why it’s impossible for her to talk to anyone about it.

Without revealing how the story turns out, let me just say that it left me with a feeling of melancholy satisfaction.

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: HarperTrophy; Reprint edition (September 30, 1996)
ISBN: 0064405176

A review of Because of Winn-Dixie, the film directed by Wayne Wang, based on the novel by Kate DiCamillo.

This is a touching portrait of a little girl’s heart. It’s a film I rented and watched, and then felt I had to watch again. And then I felt like I needed my own copy of the DVD, and like I needed to get a copy of the novel, too.

In Because of Winn-Dixie, young AnnaSophia Robb gives a stellar performance as Opal, a 10-year-old girl, daughter of the local preacher, who just moved to a new town, because preachers move. More so even than most kids in a brand new place, Opal is lonely. Not only is she new, but she’s also ostracized because she’s the preacher’s kid.

This is the case until she meets a stray dog that somehow got into the local Winn-Dixie supermarket. In a fit of heroism, she rescues this dog from the pound by claiming he’s her dog. She names him Winn-Dixie, after the supermarket, and he becomes her only and best friend, even though there’s no way she could possibly keep him. But she convinces her father to let her keep the dog until they can find a new home for him.

But that’s not going to happen, partially because of Opal. In the meantime, we learn that Winn-Dixie has an uncanny knack for making friends. A touching transformation occurs in Opal and in everyone she touches, all because of Winn-Dixie.

Released in 2005, Because of Winn-Dixie is apparently intended for older children, but I consider it suitable for all ages, from the very young to the very old. It’s rated PG for thematic elements and brief mild language, but I detected nothing objectionable, and I had no qualms about letting my 7-year-old daughter watch the film.

Being a character-driven story, the quality of the characters are very important, and Because of Winn-Dixie does a fine job. The story features a cast of charming characters in touching and sometimes all-too-realistic conflicts. The character changes that occurred were all convincing, and there were no magical character transformations just to push the plot forward. Bravo!

There was only one weak point: the character of the local policeman. His character was distorted, apparently for cheap comedic effect, like Barney Fife but on heroin. Since this aspect of the character added nothing to the story, and since it contradicted his role as a lawman, it came off as mixing the ridiculous with the sublime.

That last phrase “mixing the ridiculous with the sublime” I got from my father, who was himself a preacher when I was 10. I may have identified more strongly with Opal because of my own experiences as a P.K., as this movie presents an incredibly realistic perspective on thorny issues that preachers and their families face, that we as parishoners don’t usually even realize exist.

Because of Winn-Dixie is available at Amazon.com.

A review of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.

Andrew Wiggin prefers to be called Ender. He’s a six-year-old genius destined to save the world. He’s also a Third, that is the third child in a world in which it’s against the law to have more than two. The government made an exception with Ender, because he’s going to become the General who will win Earth’s war with an alien race called the Buggers. Why Ender is the one quickly becomes obvious. Yes, he’s only a little boy, but Ender thinks and acts like a great leader. And that’s why he leaves his family for battle school, to become a great military leader. But the challenges he faces in military school are more than even Ender expected, and yet he faces them with both dignity and cunning.

I easily understood why this novel won a Hugo and Nebula Award. Ender’s Game is a masterfully told tale. It’s a strongly plotted story with excellent character development. And really it is more about Ender than about the game, because the game changes Ender. As he progresses, he must wrestle with his own feelings about what he’s done and who he’s become. May God help him if he actually wins the war and kills all the Buggers. What will he do about his conflicted emotions then?

The first few chapters I had some trouble with. I especially had trouble understanding that the Earth is under forced population control. This premise never made sense to me in the context of the story and characters. The story did not need it, either. The idea of global population control was superfluous and confusing, but it only popped up a couple times after the first few chapters. And starting with the fourth chapter, Ender really grew on me. I rooted for him, and I admired him. As he faced each new challenge, I literally could not put the book down. And when I read the last page, I felt like I had really been in that other world and had really known those characters. I believe the word I used was “Wow!”

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Mass Market Paperback, 384 pages, Tor Science Fiction; Reprint edition (July 15, 1994)
ISBN: 0812550706

The Goat in the Grey Fedora
An on-line story game by Mark Darin, starring Jason Ellis, published by Pinhead Games.

Many of us expect little from adventure games. But the story game is not dead, no siree. In fact, it’s coming back to life. Just as bloggers and podcasters and videobloggers are ushering in a new era of media, on-line game publishers are ushering in a new era of story gaming.

If we expect little from adventure games, we expect even less from free games. But we should not settle. And the second episode in the Nick Bounty series by Pinhead Games neither asks us to settle nor disappoints.

Nick Bounty is a detective, not a Private I, though. He’s currently still a Public M class detective, because to become a Private I, you got to get a license, fill out all this paper work, blah blah blah. Still, he’s a murder and missing-persons detective. Have you ever heard of CSI?

Desperate for a job—And what game detective isn’t?—he stumbles into deadly conflict after a voluptuous brunette hires him to find a missing ceramic goat. Her name is Kathrine Ledbetter, but everyone calls her “Kitty.” Her uncle recently died, or was killed, but because she isn’t immediate family, no one will let her near her uncle’s things, including the ceramic goat. It isn’t valuable, but is sentimental, apparently, and Kitty wants Mr. Bounty to track it down for her. Oh well. It’s a job, right? So Nick Bounty agrees to look for the ceramic goat and soon discovers that he’s not the only one looking for it.

This is the story of The Goat in the Grey Fedora, an on-line story game by Mark Darin, starring Jason Ellis, published by Pinhead Games. The story is a typical plot-based detective story, told in a humorous film-noir style. The gameplay is classic puzzle-based adventure play, with an interface similar to that of Full Throttle and Curse of Monkey Island. Some of the puzzles have a quirky sense of logic, but once I got used to the quirky sense of humour, I had no trouble with the puzzles. On top of that, I was laughing my ass off.

If I had gotten stuck, I could have used Pinhead Games’s excellent on-line hint system. Just click on the “Hints” link on the web page. When you need a hint, read down the list of subject areas. When you find the one that applies to the puzzle that’s blocking you, roll over the hints to reveal them, one by one. Each hint progressively gives you more information, rather than just revealing the answer.

The game also has a cool soundtrack, which reminded me a little of the Tex Murphy series, and great voice acting. Its 3D graphics are rendered in a plastic cartoon style. All in all, it’s what I’d expect from a professionally produced game, which this is, and what I’ve always hoped but never previously gotten from a free download.

The Goat in the Grey Fedora is a Shockwave Flash game, which can be played on-line or downloaded for free from Pinhead Games’s web site. There are Windows and Macintosh versions available, and the Windows download worked on Linux under Wine.

It took me about an hour to play through the whole story, so it’s a short game but still enough for an evening’s entertainment. However, if after playing The Goat in the Grey Fedora you find yourself hungry for more, check out Brain Hotel, also from Pinhead Games, which is based on Ron “Aalgar” Watt’s Tales of the Odd comic strip. In Brain Hotel, Ed Arnold, a demoralized delivery man, delivers a package to a guest of the Brain Hotel on the eve of the annual supervillian convention. Being that the recipient was a supervillian, of course, Ed stumbles onto a deadly plot that could mean the lives of dozens of convention attendees. Again, a classic puzzle-based game, this game also has lots of allusions to Day of the Tentacle.

Play these and other games at www.pinheadgames.com. Also check out the Tales of the Odd comic strip at www.talesoftheodd.com.

For Valentine’s week, I’m looking at one of the best loved romantic movies of all time. No, not Casablanca, though that is one of the best loved romantic movies of all time. Go back about another decade, to 1931, to the time of Charlie Chaplin. His films enraptured me as a boy. Even today, as I watched City Lights with my family, it mesmerized my daughters, seeing it for the first time. And all the good feelings came back to me, classic scene after classic scene, the classic soundtrack sounding half from the TV, half in my memory. The comedy still makes me laugh, and the drama still moves me.

Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights is a feature-length silent film, one of the last of the great actor, writer, and director. We meet our hero, the little tramp, having spent the night sleeping on a statue. This is his life, a life he’s taken on by choice. He falls in love with a blind flower girl. When she mistakenly gets the impression that he’s rich, he falls back to admiring her from afar. But when he then heroically saves a drunk millionaire from committing suicide, the millionaire pledges his eternal gratitude and friendship. He dresses his friend in the best clothes, takes him to the best restaurant, lets him drive the motorcar, and gives him money, which he uses to help and impress the girl.

Chaplin makes great comedy out of this pauper turned prince in one hillarious shot. He jumps from the car, back then only afforded by the wealthy. He pushes over a poor sod picking up a used cigar butt, grabs the butt in order to smoke it himself, then still wearing his tuxedo, gets back in the car and drives off.

However, he is in love with this girl, and she with him. But he must play the part of a wealthy man, even when the millionaire takes off for a European trip. So he gets a job. One day, he reads about an operation that could cure the girls blindness, and he discovers her rent is overdue. She’s going to lose her home. He promises to take care of it. But then he loses his job. No money, no job, no millionaire. And then the story really gets interesting.

This movie ends with one of the most touching, dramatic scenes ever filmed. None of the characters have names, but they still tugged at my heartstrings.

Heartbeat is perhaps not what you would expect me to read. That’s because it’s intended for a different audience, girls aged 9-12. My daughter put me on to this book. She needed to do a book report, and her teacher put her on to it. What she liked in particular was the format: 180 pages of free verse, about 10,000 words.

But what author Sharon Creech does with those 10,000 words! Sharon Creech won the Newbery Medal for Walk Two Moons, and the same savoir faire is revealed in the pages of Heartbeat. The touching story is so artistically rendered, this 30-something man found it enjoyable and memorable.

12-year-old Annie loves to run, just for the fun of it. And so begins the story:

Thump-thump, thump-thump
bare feet hitting the grass
as I run run run
in the air and like the air
weaving through the trees
skimming over the ground

Annie’s friend Max also loves to run, but he runs for the competition of it. He says he’s “training to escape,” whatever that means. And he pressures her to join the track team. But Annie is an artist, not a jock. She seems repulsed at the suggestion that she should join the team, though she does not know why. And now she must choose between her deep beliefs and pleasing her friend. At that age, she does not realize all that she is, all that she can do, how remarkable are her talents and her unique point of view.

Annie is also going to get a new baby brother or sister. At first, she doesn’t understand why her mother started taking naps and stopped eating and started throwing up everywhere.

Meanwhile, her grandfather slips in and out of coherency, as the baby prepares to be born. We wonder whether he will “kick the bucket” before he can see the baby. He ran too, raced, when he was young. But after he won a trophy, he put away his running shoes forever, and Annie wants to know why.

These are clearly children’s themes. Yet I enjoyed sharing Heartbeat with my daughter. Heartbeat made me feel at the same time young and old, reminiscent, seeing parallels between Annie’s life and mine, yet with experience comfortable that I’d grown.

Most of the story threads are character-driven, but it’s not a coming-of-age story. It is a story of growing, learning, and self-actualization. It’s something a girl may want to read and re-read as she ages.

A review of the Icebox Radio Theater’s production of Peanut Butter & Tofu on Jewish Rye.
By Andrew Librizzi.
Adapted for radio by Jeffrey Adams.
Sound Stages podcast, December 27, 2005 – January 17, 2005.

Do you believe in miracles?

In December 2001, Daniel Ekuchukwu, a pastor of a Nigerian church, was in a fatal car accident. For several days, so the story goes, his wife refused to accept his death. She insisted his body be transported to a church in Onitsha. They laid him on a table downstairs, the preacher conducting services above oblivious to these goings on. Then they noticed the corpse twitch. Then it breathed. Then Daniel opened his eyes, sat up, and leaned on one of the men, by now doing everything they could to revive the once-dead corpse.

This story has circulated the world, being retold in innumerable variations. Sifting through the variations is as difficult as validating it. But that doesn’t matter to those who believe the story. There’s something deep within the human soul that longs to believe miracles still happen.

And so will you, after you listen to Peanut Butter & Tofu on Jewish Rye, a play written by Andrew Librizzi and adapted by Jeffrey Adams for the Icebox Radio Theater. The family will want to gather round the computer, or MP3 device, to listen to this hour-long radio drama, which was released last month in four episodes of the Sound Stages podcast.

Robert (Gene Gee) is a no-nonsense investment banker. Lizzie his wife (Kellye Remus) is born-again badgerer with a pasted-on smile so sweet it would make Buddha himself lose his temper. They’re already late to Robert’s boss’s New-Year’s party, when a bum gets in their way, literally. Then their lives change forever.

Gabe, the bum, is played by Jeffrey Adams, who also directs and hosts the series. And yes, that’s Gabe, as in…

Most Spiritual Fiction seems more designed to score evangelism points, rather than tell a good story. Even if you have a theme, even if you have something to say, you have to put the story first. Peanut Butter & Tofu on Jewish Rye puts the story first. Theology, such as it is, is just there to tell the story, like the characterizations and other plot devices. As a result, this story manages to moralize without getting preachy, because the characters are real, their conflicts are real. Their beliefs are real to them. And the magic is real, too. It’s all part of the same thing. And in a twist of fate and faith that will make you cry harder than the movie Ghost did, you’ll end up believing in the supernatural, too, or at least wishing you could.

The story is targeted at a Christian audience. But it is told well enough that anyone who enjoys a good story should enjoy this one. All you have to do is accept that Lizzie believes what she says, and she’s so annoying about it, that’s very easy. But that’s part of her character, and it turns out to be part of her charm. You also don’t need to be well-versed in theology in order to understand the story, as there’s no theology to speak of, except what is necessary to tell the story. (I’m trying desperately hard not to spoil it, as this is one story that deserves not to be spoiled.)

A small note: At the end of part 3, I got confused. I didn’t know what was happening, why she did that. It seemed so unlike her. And why did he react the way he did? Nothing made any sense. But hang on until part 4; all will be explained in short order.

And by the end, the title will make sense, too.

The Icebox Radio Theater’s production of Andrew Librizzi’s Peanut Butter & Tofu on Jewish Rye was recorded April 30, 2005 at KBHW Studio-3, International Falls, Minnesota. It was aired December 27, 2005 through January 17, 2006 on the Sound Stages podcast.

When a friend of mine found out I liked Gilmore Girls, he said, “Really? What’s it about? It’s just a mother and daughter, right?” How does that represent what’s probably the best dramatic series on TV right now? Isn’t that like saying, “The Godfather is just another movie about organized crime”?

Gilmore Girls is indeed about a thirty-something mother, Lorelai, and her 21-year-old daughter, also Lorelai (but everyone calls her Rory). Men name their sons after themselves all the time. So when Lorelai, the mother, when she was only 16, gave birth to a little girl, she decided to name her after herself. A sizeable quantity of Demerol also bore upon that decision.

Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel) live in the tiny Connecticut town of Stars Hollow, along with a cast of characters just wacky enough to fall in love with. Sookie (Melissa McCarthy), Lorelai’s business partner and closest friend, is a master chef who as much a danger in the kitchen as a maestro. Luke (Scott Patterson), is Lorelai’s other best friend, and is also the sexy and grouchy proprietor of the town diner, which keeps Lorelai in coffee and food, but mostly coffee. Of course, now that they’re engaged—long story, over 5 years worth—the coffee is a lot closer. Lane (Keiko Agena) is Rory’s childhood best-friend, who has her own stories told throughout these episodes. That’s not even half the cast, and I’m running out of time.

Creator-producer Amy Sherman-Palladino has woven in Gilmore Girls a deeply complex, character-driven story, full of charm and abundant doses of humour. The show is also known for its numerous Gilmorisms, cultural allusions sprinkled throughout. It’s popular among young adults and teens, but does not talk down to the audience. (Actually, I think kids these days are smarter than they frequently are given credit for.)

Each episode can be appreciated on its own, but you’ll appreciate it a whole lot more after you’ve seen it in context with the other episodes. I actually started watching the show, during its third year, because I saw that Edward Hermann stars in it, as Lorelai’s father, a rich and proper gentleman named Richard Gilmore. I don’t know how it happened. Before I even knew it, I was hooked. Back then, Rory was in her last year at the Chilton School, in the middle of a number of conflicts, about to graduate and close the first book of the story. WB was also rerunning episodes under the title Gilmore Girls: Beginnings, and I was starving for back-episodes. But the earliest episodes I missed, as I did a certain pivotal episode—the dance marathon ep—which contains a major plot point. And when the first DVD’s were released, I was too poor to afford them. Finally, ABC Family began rerunning all the episodes, in order, from the first, and I watched every single night. I have since remedied the situation with the DVD’s, which I have watched over and over again.

The first three seasons of Gilmore Girls represent a unified story arc, as do the episodes starting with season 4. When Amy Sherman-Palladino started a new story in season 4, it was a bold, brave move, or at least it turned out to be. At the time, I too thought season 4 was lackluster. Ratings for the show dropped in that season, and things could’ve turned out like Firefly. But someone at WB was enlightened, and the show is now in its sixth season.

The reason the fourth season seemed lackluster was because the focus had shifted. The story was no longer about Rory getting through Chilton and Lorelai becoming an entrepreneur. Both of these storylines started in the pilot and wrapped up in the final episode of the third season. That last episode has a sense of finality to it. We came back in the fourth season to a brand new story, one about the changing relationship between mother and daughter, a relationship that’s changing because both mother and daughter are themselves changing. In retrospect, for a lackluster season, the fourth has an awful lot of classic episodes.

But what is “classic” in a show like Gilmore Girls? It’s easier to count the episodes that are just so-so, which I can do on my fingers. Out of over 120 episodes, that’s a pretty good record. Much more difficult is it to avoid watching any episodes, even the so-so ones, since the storyline pulls you along from one episode to the next. Gilmore Girls is truly a classic series.

New sixth-season episodes of Gilmore Girls can be seen on the WB network. Reruns of earlier episodes are airing on ABC-Family. Seasons 1-5 are currently available on DVD.

Now, what I’ve really wanted to say since the beginning of this review, I haven’t been able to say. I couldn’t say it because it would have sounded insincere, or gushy, or just plain creepy. But now that I’ve laid the groundwork, hopefully, it won’t seem too extreme: Amy Sherman-Palladino is a storytelling genius.

Tell me a story. Tell me a story about telling stories. Tell me about before there was the Internet, and people wrote with heavy machines that went clunk-clunk, and they wrote their dreams on paper, and then the papers got burned up. And then they started again and became famous.

Well, what you want to hear is Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop by Kate Wilhelm.

Storyteller is a 190-page story about telling stories, not a novel, not a biography, not a tutorial, not a reference. Just a story. It’s part memoir, part instruction guide. Kate Wilhelm tells of her days as instructor of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, from the days when she co-founded it, funding was non-existent, and they couldn’t even find a location that wanted to host the workshop, through thick and thick, reading manuscripts, learning to teach, mediating the frivolity that students found to release the pressure, rejoicing in it, then tearing out the hearts of her students with a red pencil, tutoring names that went on to become successful, well-known writers, editors, and teachers. These students fill out a vast array of personalities, no two alike, and I marvelled at the diverse approaches that worked for different people.

Clarion is an intensive, six-week writing program for beginners, a “boot camp for writers.” And in Kate Wilhelm’s story, the participants groan, complain, and even sometimes rebel. Throughout this engrossing tale, Kate weaves her advice and that of her then-husband, the late Damon Knight. For a beginning writer, it’s as if you’re there with her, learning along with the others. Except that maybe you aren’t in tears. If you’re an experienced writer, more than once you’ll find yourself pausing to laugh, or to exclaim “Yeah!” or to wonder how could anyone do that.

The book is a pleasure to read, less easy to use as a reference. Unlike other works, it’s less nuts-and-bolts and more creative. However, there are two reference chapters, “Notes and Lessons on Writing” and “Writing Exercises,” which sum up the advice portrayed throughout the book. All in all, Storyteller is an invaluable resource for beginning writers, and an entertaining and refreshing read for those with more experience.

Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop
by Kate Wilhelm
Publisher: Small Beer Press
ISBN: 193152016X
paperback, 190 pages

This is Stanisław Lem week. This past Monday, we looked at his novel The Investigation. Today, we’re reviewing a two-volume set: Tales of Pirx the Pilot and More Tales of Pirx the Pilot.

“Cadet Pirx!”

Bullpen’s voice snapped him out of his daydreaming. He had just had visions of a two-crown piece lying tucked away in the fob pocket of his old civvies, the ones stashed at the bottom of his locker. A jingling, shiny silver coin—all but forgotten…

“Cadet Pirx, what would you do if you were on patrol and encountered a ship from an alien planet?”

Pirx opened his mouth wide, as if the answer were there and all he had to do was to force it out. He looked like the last person on Earth who knew what to do when meeting up with a vessel from an alien planet.

“I would maneuver closer,” he answered, his voice muted and strangely hoarse.

The class froze in welcome anticipation of some comic relief.

“Very good,” Bullpen said in a fatherly sort of way. “Then what would you do?” …

Furiously, he racked his empty brains in search of the appropriate paragraphs from his Space Manual, but it was as if he had never laid eyes on it. Sheepishly he lowered his gaze, and as he did so, he noticed that Smiga was trying to prompt him—with his lips only. One by one he deciphered Smiga’s words and repeated them out loud, before he had a chance to fully digest them.

“I’d introduce myself.”

So begins the first of the Tales of Pirx the Pilot.

The two novels come one after the other in terms of content and were originally released, in 1968 in Polish, as a single work. Between them, they contain ten stories following Pirx’s career from the time he was a cadet until he’s a seasoned veteran. As he matures, he develops confidence, wisdom, and a justifiable dislike of robots. In typical Lem style, the Tales of Pirx the Pilot are engaging, strongly plotted stories, full of character depth as well as cool future-tech gizmos.

Pirx, you see, is a pilot of space vessels, freighters mostly. In his world, space travel is common. Yet things always seem to go wrong, and Pirx always seems to get caught in the middle of it. Pirx is a seat-of-the-pants, “to hell with the instructions—they can’t help me now” kinda guy, in charge of hundred-foot-tall, mega-ton space rockets. From the beginning, Pirx faces crisis, insanity, disaster, ghosts, intrigue, court martial, and a crazed killer robot. And his instincts save him time and again.

Take the first story in the collection, “The Test,” an account of Pirx’s final exam, as it were, his maiden solo voyage. How did a half-witted, daydreaming, bungling idiot like Pirx get into the program in the first place? Nonetheless, I guess he made it, and it comes down to this. It’s just a routine escort mission, but he needs to get it right. A screw up could cost him his pilot’s license, or his life, as it turns out. The ending I will not give away, but I will say it left me shocked and laughing.

By the last story, entitled “Ananke,” Pirx finds himself investigating the cause of a devastating crash, of a new-model freighter. By this time, he’s been piloting for decades, and space flight has been computerized to the hilt since the time he was a cadet, and these new pilots don’t even know how to operate the machinery, not like he had to learn as a cadet, and he doesn’t like it, not one bit. He’s probably right.

Tales of Pirx the Pilot and More Tales of Pirx the Pilot not only transport us to the future, like science fiction should, but challenge us to think about where we’re going on the way.

This episode almost didn’t make it out in time. Production got hung up when I got carried away at east of the web.

east of the web is a web site featuring quality short stories, hundreds of them, by new and classic authors. Aside from the top-rated stories and the stories featured on the front-page, the daily channel features a different story every day from the site’s vast library. Or you can have the site select for you a random story.

Stories are arranged by genre: children’s, crime, general fiction, horror, humour, nonfiction, romance, and sci-fi. Within each genre, you can browse stories by rating, author, date, or length, or by subgenre or category.

You can read the stories immediate or put them on your bookshelf for later. And you can read them on-line or print them out or download them to your PDA.

The workshop forum, “short stories uncut” is where writers post their work for critique. There are areas to have general discussions, talk about writing, and compete in writing challenges. There are also a number of writing groups. And there’s the standard forum for market listings.

The site includes a page of teaching materials and a page of story guides and author interviews.

And there’s a page of on-line word games, if you’re not afraid of wasting an hour or ten. I think my favorite is eight letters, a race against the clock to create anagrams of up to 8 letters.

Whatever happened to Zorro? I think I may have seen him on a spaceship, a Firefly-class cargo vessel called Serenity. And there was even an episode with a swordfight!

Zorro was not just a guy with a cape and a mask. Zorro was the great righter of wrongs, the prototypical American hero, he who fights for the poor and downtrodden, those too weak to fight for themselves, against those who have power and aren’t afraid to abuse it.

Firefly is both a space opera and a western, and it has a spiritual side, too. And it includes the essences of our favorite heroes, from the A-Team to Zorro and everyone inbetween. Originally marketed as a sci-fi comedy, Firefly does have some funny moments, but really it is a serial drama in the spirit of Babylon 5, with a deep, engaging, complex storyline and a whole heck of a lot of character.

It tells the story of nine people trying to live their lives, just trying to make ends meet, trying to do the right thing and stay out of trouble in the process. This is one of those few series in which it is difficult to pick the best episodes, because every one is a classic.

To get the most from the story, watch the episodes in the correct story order, which unfortunately was not the order in which the episodes were originally aired. (Also note that the Firefly DVD set includes all 14 episodes, not just the 12 that made it to TV.)

Despite its short run and premature cancellation, Joss Whedon created in Firefly the very definition of enthralling and engrossing. Firefly was one of the most innovative series of 2002, for its writing, its cinematography, its soundtrack, even its vibrant and diverse setting that crosses cultural boundaries.

A major story throughout Firefly is that of River, a 17-year-old girl involunarily subjected to invasive brain surgery by an autocratic government, leaving her emotionally disturbed yet with mental powers unknown to Serenity’s crew. The 2005 movie Serenity, recently released on DVD, continues her story.

In Serenity, River faces her new powers and seeks the cause of her dimentia. In the process, the Serenity crew must face the most horrifying supervillian yet.

Serenity does not capture all the charm of the original series. It’s primarily a scifi-action thriller, with so much ongoing intensity, there’s not enough time to take a breath and appreciate the character interactions. But there is enough depth there to make rewatching Serenity worthwhile, especially in the light of the Firefly episodes.

At a few points, the plot did become a wee bit James Bond. I mean if you actually intended to kill the villian, you should’ve blown his head off. If you didn’t blow his head off, you should not be surprised that as soon as you turn your back, he’s on you like a reaver.

It’s also a little unclear who the real hero of Serenity is, but I guess the story is strong enough to support two heroes.

Already cult classics, Firefly and Serenity have enough in them to appeal to a diverse audience.

A comic book called Serenity, currently in print, bridges the gap in story from Firefly (the series) to Serenity (the movie).

The Sci-Fi Channel will be running an all-day marathon of the first 12 Firefly episodes in the correct story order. It’s on Friday, January 6, 2006, at 8 A.M. See http://www.scifi.com/firefly/ for more information.

BTW, Here’s the Serenity trailer:

I think I finally know what I want to do with my life. Not my career, but what I do for a mid-life crisis. I want to be Tim Schafer. On the Psychonauts credit sheet, Tim Schafer is listed as “Creative Director.” The creative genius behind such classic story-games as Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango, Tim Schafer and his crack team at Double Fine Productions this year released Psychonauts, a story-based platform game.

Story

Psychonauts is set at the Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, in a world where some people have developed psychic abilities, including telekinesis and telepathy. People with these powers are outcasts, treated as though there’s something wrong with them, just for having powers that they never even asked for.

Our hero Razputin, or “Raz” for short, is a boy who decides he doesn’t want to live in this world anymore. So he runs away from home to train to be an international psychic secret agent, in other words, a psychonaut. Of course, the staff at Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp can’t train Raz without his parents’ permission. Therefore, they contact his parents to bring him home.

But it will take a few days for his parents to get there. And in the meantime, the camp councillors notice Raz’s astounding psychic talents. And Raz is all too anxious to prove himself by completing in those couple of days the entire course and becoming a psychonaut. Normally, we wouldn’t even think this to be possible. But as it turns out, Raz is special. Throughout his crash-course training, Raz learns more about the human psyche, and even about himself, than he probably counted on.

Gameplay

Psychonauts is a traditional 3-D platform game, available for Windows, the X-Box, and Playstation 2.

In most platform games, the story is not integral to the game. It has obviously been glommed onto the side like some huge wart, some fake back-story that’s supposed to increase our interest in the game. In Psychonauts, the story is part of the game, so much so that sometimes I forgot that I was playing a game. Talk about suspension of disbelief, eh?

Game structure is traditional for platform games, with several increasingly difficult levels followed by a “boss” level. But the story is so tightly integrated into the gameplay, I didn’t even notice this traditional structure until after I had played through it. I was simply playing through the story.

As the story— er, gameplay progresses, Raz increases his Psi rating, earning him more and greater powers. He also collects merit badges, through which he gains further skills. But earning these skills never becomes laborious, as in some platform games, because even learning the skills is tightly integrated into the storyline. Many of the things Raz does happen inside the mind, and Psychonauts uses this fact to its best advantage. These things are done as if in a dream. Raz can enter the dream and exit the dream almost at will. Raz will begin working through a level, only to determine that he needs additional skills in order to complete that level. At that point, he can go off and earn those skills. Never did I have to learn skills merely for the sake of learning them. Always there is an imminent need for learning the skills.

This makes Psychonauts an appropriate game, not only for experienced platform gamers, but for beginners as well.

Links

The Psychonauts web page is at www.psychonauts.com.