Madonna turned 56 yesterday, and damn does she still look good. Madonna, after having a 30 year career, is one of those icons that defines my childhood. While I will never go and say I'm a rabid fan of hers, I do love her and her music, and there is nobody that can touch her. Much like Michael Jackson, she helped define an entire generation of music fans, and artists. With no signs of slowing down, I'm pretty sure she is going to continue to spread her influence, and take over the few slivers of the world she doesn't already control. In celebration of her birthday, I wanted to share my ten favorite songs of hers. So sit back, and enjoy the trip down memory lane. And no, I'm not going to be listing them in any sort of order.
I'm really trying to figure out how my 38th birthday snuck up on me like this. I knew it was coming, I even took two days off to try and enjoy it, but it still got here quicker than I was expecting. Maybe it's because I'm still frickin exhausted from my demanding work schedule over the last month. Not that I can do much about it when I'm running two stores because we are so short on management right now.
I'm not going to do much for my birthday today. I'll go out to lunch with a friend, maybe go to a bookstore or two, but more the most part I'm just going to relax and enjoy some quiet time. I'll read a bit, and watch a few movie, but mostly I'll rest. A nice quiet birthday is just what I need.
I was reminded the other day how the He-Man, Transformers, and G.I. Joe cartoons came to be, back in the 1980s. They, along with about a bazillion other cartoons back then, were created to sell toys that already existed. If you think about it, it was a brilliant move on the part of toy manufacturers. We became so addicted to the cartoons, we had to go and beg our parents for the toys.
So that got me thinking about all the fantastic characters that were created to sell other stuff to us as consumers. They pitched everything from raisins, chips, cereal, tuna fish, frozen vegetables, tires, cleaning supplies, and just about everything else you can possibly think of.
Over the next few weeks I'm going to be sharing some of my favorites; the ones that have stuck in my head over the years, or even just entertained me to no end. I think a lot of them will be from the food aisles of the supermarket, but who knows who will show up over the next few weeks.
I thought I would start with everyone's favorite Italian-American Tiger, Tony the Tiger. The Kellogg's Frosted Flakes mascot, has been on the job since 1951, and he's still looking good. I could sit here and lie and tell you that I fell in love with him the first time I ever saw a commercial, but come one now. The idea of me even remembering the first time I saw Tony is a ridiculous concept. I was a little kid, how the heck would something like that stick in my brain?
What I can tell you is how much I begged my mom for Frosted Flakes as a kid, and I can lame all the blame on Tony. He was so much fun to watch on screen, and I loved the way he talked. I even vaguely remember various family members making it into the commercials, though they didn't make that much impression on me. I can also remember asking my mom why he didn't have a regular cartoon. I just couldn't get it. Here was a really cool cartoon character, without a cartoon. It made no sense to me, and I'm still thinking Kellogg messed up when they didn't go all out with him.
To this day, when I'm going down the cereal aisle at the supermarket, I'm just a tad bit tempted to pick up Frosted Flakes. I don't even like them that well, but my love for Tony, or his magical brainwashing abilities, gets to me every time. And there are even times, when my inner child is screaming for attention, that I cave in, and Kellogg's Frosted Flakes makes it into the cart.
There are just 77 days before a deadly asteroid collides with Earth and Detective Hank Palace is out of a job. With the Concord police force operating under the auspices of the U.S. Justice Department, Hank's days of solving crimes are over... until a woman from his past begs for help finding her missing husband. Brett Cavatone disappeared without a trace - an easy feat in a world with no phones, no cars, and no way to tell whether someone's gone "bucket list" or just gone. With society falling to shambles, Hank pieces together what few clues he can, on a search that leads him from a college-campus-turned-anarchist-encampment to a crumbling coastal landscape where anti-immigrant militia fend of "impact zone" refugees.
It's been over two years since I read the first book in this trilogy, The Last Policeman, and I'm really at a loss to explain why it's taken so long to read the second. I can't even use the excuse that I didn't have the book, I can honestly say I've had this one laying around for far too long. I'm actually a little embarrassed by it, and feeling just a tad bit of shame.
Obviously I loved The Last Policeman, and I loved Hank Palace. That love hasn't diminished, it's only grown after reading Countdown City. Hank Palace is an archetypal character who breaks the mold. He's the hero, but he's still an everyday man, doing the best he can in a world gone to hell. He is a man of principal and character, and one who does his duty, when most of the world has given up. He is who I would want to be in that sort of a situation, but I'm almost positive I could not live up to that ideal. But even more, he's the man I would want at my side, in any capacity, should the world be close to ending. And yes, he will have his very own FFC post at some point in time.
Even with a stellar character, and a plot that continues to move along at a steady pace, no book it guaranteed to be a winner. When you factor in the author, Ben H. Winters, you are guaranteed a winner. I'm in love with the way he writes, and the way he develops his worlds. I fell in love with him when I read Bedbugs for the first time, a book I still view as one of the best horror novels ever written. In all three books of his that I've read, he has created a fully realized 4-D environment. He used the simplest details and descriptions to create a truly believable world, given the parameters he is creating it in. His prose has a lyrical simplicity, that allows the reader to truly get immersed in the writing, and in the world.
With only 77 days until a massive comet slams into the world, producing an event that will cause the extinction of the human race, the tension is ratcheted up from the previous book. Everyone seems to be more on edge, and humanity is starting to give in to it's basest nature. It's in that environment that Hank is at work, trying to find the missing husband of a former babysitter, and crush. He is having to rely on, and work with those he may not have much in common with, or particularly like, but he's given his word, and a man like Hank does not go back on that.
I could ramble on for another twenty paragraphs or so, but I'm not going to subject you to that. Instead I'll hit a few more points. Brett is a lot like Hank, despite his running off on his wife. He is another archetypal hero, and one that I was sorry to see not sticking around. We get to see Hank with his sister again, probably the most important relationship in his life, and I was glad to see her. I really want to stress that this isn't your typical mystery novel. It explores themes that most authors shy away from, let alone genre writers. This book is about our relationships with each other, and to society in general. It's also about the strengths, and weaknesses, of the human condition. It explores who we are in the face of adversity, and almost certain death. But most of all, it's a book about love and hope in the face of hardship.
You will never hear me not recommend this series, or any book by Ben H. Winters. So please go out and get The Last Policeman. Then follow it up with Countdown City and the third book, World of Trouble. I have a review of that one coming up next week.
I'm not sure how it happened, or what I was thinking, but for some odd reason, when I did my post on my favorite bands of all time, I somehow left of Queen. They were one of those bands that I loved as a kid, I would beg my mom to play their albums, I simply could not get enough of them. I'm not even sure who I would have kicked off the posted list, but the fact that I dissed Queen in such a way, I should hang my head down in shame. It's an inexcusable offense, and I just hope that Freddie Mercury can forgive me. The
To make it up, I thought I would devote an entire post to my favorite Queen songs.
On his way to London after being released from a mental asylum, Stephen Neale (Ray Miland) stops at a seemingly innocent village fair, after which he finds himself caught in the web of a sinister, possibly Nazi-connected underworld.
I'm almost positive that Yvette of in so many words... is responsible for me seeing this movie, at least the first time around. She reviewed it on December 28th, 2010. I read her review on December 29th, and watched the movie on February 2nd, of 2011. I only know this because I just went back and read the comments I made on her post. I've always found Ray Miland rather dashing, and I'm in love with him in The Uninvited, so when she wrote up her review, I knew I had to watch it.
The Criterion Collection just released it on Blu Ray last year, and I'm pretty sure I bought it the week it came out. How can you not love a movie that starts off with Ray Miland's character being released from an asylum, where he was committed for two year after buying the drugs his wife used to killer herself. She was dying a horrible death, and she asked for his help in ending it. Once he bought the drugs, he was unable to go through with the plan, but she got a hold of them anyway, and that was that. So he was there for two years, and the first thing he does is hope decide to hop on a train for London. Once he is at the station, he sees a little fete across the way, and since he has time he joins in.
Long story short, he ends up with a cake, meant for someone else. He is followed onto the train by a fake blind guy steals the cake, jumps off the train, and Ray Miland starts chasing after him. The guy is killed by a German bomber, dropping bombs on the innocent countryside. Which if you think about it, a German spy getting killed by a German bomb, is rather hilarious.
Once in London, Milan decides to look into the charity that hosted the fete, he meets the Austrian refugees who run the organization, and the games really begin. For the rest of the movie, we are treated to some of the craziest, most convoluted actions on the face of the planet. The plot just takes off, and if it can be twisted and turned, it is. But that's the genius of the movie, it's takes the most outrageous plot twists it can, and somehow you still buy into it. You really believe that a cabal of German spies, has been able to infiltrate every level of society, stealing military secrets and using a tailor to pass them along. The characters are over the top, just the way they should be in such a story, though some of the acting itself is rather stilted and some of the casting choices, Marjorie Reynolds, doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Hillary Brooke on the other hand, who I also adore, is brilliant as Mrs. Bellane, one of the cabalists, and a fake medium. It's through here that we are treated to one of the most memorable seance scenes I've ever seen on screen, the tension is thick through the entire thing, and the way light is used, sheer genius. Actually, the entire movies uses light and shadows brilliantly. There are a few scenes where the absences of light is used to it's fullest effect, two of the better ones are at the end.
Did I forget to mention that this is all taking place in a London that is in the middle of war, dealing with nightly German bombardments? I also want to make sure I mentioned the many gun fights, an apartment explosion, and one of the coolest book stores (also a Nazi front), that I've ever seen. I won't get into how many characters die, or the one who has to die twice. I won't even mention the lack of resolution concerning some of the characters, such as Mrs. Bellane. You just have to assume that in the end, they are all rounded up.
What I will say, is that with every viewing, I find myself falling in love with this one more and more. Fritz Lang, though the movie is supposed to be quite different in tone from the Graham Greene book it's based on, directed a terrific example of Noir, and it plays those tropes to the hilt. It is quickly becoming one of my favorite movies, and I'm sure it is one that will have many more viewings in my home.
June 1565: Master Hiro Hattori receives a pre-dawn visit from Kazu, a fellow shinobi working undercover at the shogunate. Hours before, the shogun's cousin, Saburo, was stabbed to death in the shogun's palace. The murder weapon: Kazu's personal dagger. Kazu says he's innocent, and begs for Hiro's help, but his story give Hiro reason to doubt the young shinobi's claims. When the shogun summons Hiro and Father Mateo, the Portuguese Jesuit priest under Hiro's protection, to find the killer, Hiro finds himself forced to choose between friendship and personal honor. The investigation reveals a plot to assassinate the shogun and overthrow the ruling Ashikaga clan. With Lord Oda's enemy forces approaching Kyoto, and the murderer poised to strike again, Hiro must use his assassin's skills to reveal the killer's identity and protect the shogun at any cost. Kazu, now trapped in the city, still refuses to explain his whereabouts at the time of the murder. But a suspicious shogunate maid, Saburo's wife, and the shogun's stable master also had reasons to want Saburo dead. With the shogun demanding the murderer's head before Lord Oda reaches the city, Hiro and Father Mateo must produce the killer in time... or die in his place.
I've been sitting here trying to figure out what to say about Blade of the Samurai. Much like the last book I reviewed, All I Love and Know by Judith Frank, I'm of two mind on this one. Where a relationship flaw threw me in that previous book, it's the setting that I'm having a hard time with in this one.
Part of the reason why I wanted to read Blade of the Samurai, was because of how much I enjoyed the first book in the Sugawara Akitada series by I.J. Parker, The Dragon Scroll. It's another series set in feudal Japan, and I fell in love with the feel of the entire book, even if the characters where a bit stiff and formal in their behavior, dictated by the setting. The author brought that time period to life for me, and I couldn't imagine the story or those characters living at any other time, or in any other place.
I didn't get that with this book. The author used the language and even some of the cultural differences to frame her story, but I never got that total immersion experience I was looking for. The entire time I was reading it, I would occasionally forget about the setting, and I was able to picture it somewhere else, in another time. It just never felt like a fully fleshed out real world to me. And I'm sad to say, I was a little disappointed by that.
On the other hand, I loved Hiro and Father Mateo, and just about every other character in the book.They were fun to hang out with, and I'm really looking forward to their next mystery. And as far as mysteries go, while there was nothing that really stood out for me, it was a nice solid story, that kept moving along. There were no plot holes, or odd jumps of logic. Everything progressed in a linear fashion, and I really did enjoy the story overall. I just wish the setting would have been a little bit more concrete, allowing me to really lose myself in it.
I would like to thank Lisa of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read/review this book. Please visit the tour page to read other reviews.
