Oh, it’s nice to be back in my own home with a cat on my lap. A six-hour drive has left me incapable of anything but random thoughts, but I need to clear my head.
Once again, Turner Classic Movies was the saving grace of a few days in the sedate environment of the ancestral home. How could I have forgotten that Operation Petticoat is one of the most homoerotic movies ever made?
Every time I think I’ve worked at the worst daily newspapers in the world, I go home and read the holiday edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer. Simply awful.
I finally remembered to pick up a copy of Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 542 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell. It’s about cooking and blogging. How could it go wrong? I admit I’m finding it a bit slow to start, because there are already several thousand books about late-20-somethings struggling through dead-end jobs in Manhattan, and the world isn’t exactly enriched by the addition of Powell’s experience to the genre. Enough with the urban angst and on with the aspic, already. (Graeme McMillan liked it, though, so I can certainly be patient.)
Bless Tony Salvaggio for explaining the aesthetic of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure in the latest Calling Manga Island. The idea of people cosplaying these characters is absolutely terrifying to me, though I swear I’ve seen some of these outfits at leather bars on Halloween.
David Taylor offers his take on the PW Best of 2005, rightly adding Death Note to the list of the year’s most impressive debuts. (Would Fruits Basket count? Or did it have to premiere in 2005?) Johanna Draper Carlson offers some suggested additions to the list, following up on her excellent initial analysis. This is always my favorite part of Best Of Season, not so much the lists themselves, but the “But what about…” discussion that follows.