Downton Abbey actor ~ handsome, talented and a writer!

There is a fan frenzy currently going on in America and it’s focus is on “Downton Abbey”. I’m not sure why this particular drama has caused such a stir when for years we have been the lucky recipients of so many other great British dramas, comedies and detective series on our PBS and BBC America stations but it has.

Highclere Castle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I really enjoyed the first season because it put me in mind of two of my favorite shows, “Gosford Park”, another Julian Fellowes creation, and “Manor House”, a kind of Edwardian, “Upstairs Downstairs” reality show, but the two subsequent seasons just seem  too “soapy” and the writing has fallen way off. Of course that hasn’t stopped me from watching it mind you!

Today I learned something new about one of the most popular characters/actors on the show, Matthew Crawley/Dan Stevens.  Apparently the 28 year is not only a talented actor but is a gifted writer as well. He studied English Literature at Cambridge and has recently started a literary magazine called, The Junket. This article on the NBC news website talks about Stevens’ decision to start this quarterly magazine to help him get over his procrastination and get down to writing regularly.  He and four of his Cambridge friends originally were writing a blog, but decided this literary magazine venture would force them to be a bit more proactive and not dilly dally so much (this is my phrase not his!).

The first edition came out in October and apparently they have been overwhelmed with submissions, due greatly in part to Stevens’ growing popularity. He was even appointed to the panel of judges for the 2012 Man Booker Prize and has signed up for next year’s judging as well. As the article pointed out, he has added “a large dose of glamour to the award”. 

I already liked him for his portrayal of Matthew Crawley, but I’ve gained even more respect for him because of his love of literature. No wonder he is so much smarter than Lord Granville, this explains a lot!

Hail to the Chef

I am a horrible cook. Well not horrible, just a lackluster cook. I don’t like planning meals, shopping for groceries or preparing food, which makes it absolutely nutty that I’m addicted to cooking and food shows! I love Top Chef, Top Chef Masters, MasterChef, and the Great Food Truck Race. And then there is Come Dine with Me, The Next Food Network Star and Restaurant Impossible. I could list probably a half a dozen more but I figure that you’ve already gotten the idea

What’s even crazier about these shows is that most of the things they prepare aren’t really things I usually dine on when I go out to eat. It’s kind of foo foo, fancy schmancy, small portions that are made with ingredients that my local grocery probably doesn’t even carry. Yet I’m glued to the TV, watching the chefs chop veggies with wild abandon, cooking with new techniques, like liquid nitrogen, and touching all the food while plating (yuck!).

I continue to be mesmerized while the “expert” panel of judges, taste, analyze and dissect each morsel, with a proliferation of flowery adjectives, and decide whether the bite of food was seasoned and flavorful enough for their discerning palates. Of course, we the viewer, have to take their taste buds word for it because we can neither taste nor smell the plates, obviously it’s a visual experience only!

I have to say though that the few times I’ve been lucky enough to visit a television top chefs’ restaurant (Gordon Ramsey, Emeril Lagasse, Rick Bayless) never once did I say, “Man, that was the best meal I’ve ever eaten”…never!  I don’t know whether that means I’m not classy enough to appreciate fine dining or whether those that do love it feel they must because they just forked over a weeks’ salary for their dinner. Probably a little of both!

So I will continue to indulge my love for cooking and food television shows from the comfort of my couch with my PB&J sandwich on my plate, a bag of chips by my side and a beer in my hand. Just because I don’t like cooking, shopping or preparing food doesn’t mean I don’t love eating it!

Related articles

• Chefs hail 1st foodies with inauguration salute (news.yahoo.com)

My newest guilty pleasure

Since I find myself with a bit of time on my hands and a lousy cable plan I’ve discovered a new TV show that I really love…..GCB.

Now when I saw this show advertised I thought it looked PDS (pretty darn stupid) but I was wrong! It’s funny, clever and has a great bunch of actors playing a hysterical cast of characters.

Based on a novel by Kim Gatlin, it’s the story of Amanda Vaughn (Leslie Bibb) a widow and a mother of two, who comes back home to her old neighborhood in Dallas, Texas to live with her Mama. Amanda’s Mom (played by one of my favorite actresses Annie Potts) is filthy rich, as are the rest of Amanda’s old friends and neighbors.

Amanda’s no longer the Queen B and is on the outs with her previous click, headed up by Carlene Cockburn played by the delightful Kristin Chenoweth. Sharon Peacham (Jennifer Aspen) and Cricket Caruth-Reilly (Miriam Shor) are the other deliciously, malicious, CB’s who spout bible passages by memory, while sticking the knife in the backs of their “friends” all with a smile on their faces and a cocktail in their hands.

It’s a whole lot of fun and my newest guilty pleasure!

The Midwife by Jennifer Worth

I became aware of this book when I was searching on Amazon.co.uk for a different title. By the way this is a great way to find titles that aren’t available in the States, but I digress…

Anyway, during my search I decided to look at some of their bestseller lists.  A trio of books by Jennifer Worth were near the top of the memoir/bio category and their synopses intrigued me. I hurriedly flipped over to my public library’s website to see by some chance if we might have a copy of one of them. Low and behold the first book in the series, The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times was available!  Yippee!  I love when a book I want to read is available for free at my local library. Aren’t libraries wonderful?…again I digress..

I must admit that when I first started the book, I kind of read a bit and then put it aside to read something else, mostly because I’m a squeamish sort and the opening chapter about a woman giving birth kind of put me off.  I’ve been there done that, I don’t really need to read about it in all it’s graphic glory! But then it came down to the fact that I had just this one library book at home left to read before my Alaska Adventure so I plowed on and I’m glad I did.

The more I read this book the more it put me in mind of James Herriot‘s vet series, except with humans instead of animals. That sounds awful, doesn’t it?! But it’s the truth. I guess maybe it was Ms. Worth’s weaving of anecdotes about her mid-wife profession and the colorful characters she met throughout her career. That is why I loved all of James Herriot’s books after all. It’s kind of like sitting around the kitchen table listening to my aunts’ telling tales out of school and gossiping unabashedly, do you know what I mean?  You can’t help but listen and feel part of the setting.

The story does well to mix the good, the bad and the ugly (sorry for stealing the movie title!) while injecting just enough levity in to the mix. Her descriptions of 1950′s London are very vivid and capture a snapshot of a specific time and place that might otherwise be forgotten. After all how many people want to wax nostalgic on living poor in horrid conditions?

I see that the BBC recently premiered a TV series based on Jennifer Worth’s memoirs. I hope that eventually the series will wash up on American soil  either on BBC America or DVD, like so many other great British series.
I would love to see this book serialized!

Related articles

• Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950s, By Jennifer Worth (independent.co.uk)
• Ratings high for Midwife finale (bbc.co.uk)

Hotel Alcatraz

Look at this cool pop-up hotel that opened in London to coincide with the TV premier of Alcatraz in the UK!

Steampunk

I love the idea of Steampunk! When I was still working at the library I can remember the first time a book came in to be catalogued and it had a subject heading of Steampunk. We were all going, huh? what the heck is that. I think we all thought it was yet another “phase” and would soon die out. I honestly didn’t quite “get it”. But now I do and I think it is so cool.

I have to say I’m much more familiar with the jewelry and art that’s come out of Steampunk than I am with the literature. Etsy has some great Steampunk items on their site.  What also came to my mind, when I finally understood it a little more, were a couple of older TV shows that I watched when I was growing up…The Avengers and The Wild Wild West.  Both of these shows mixed a little bit of science fiction and fantasy. The Avengers was more of a spy/espionage show while The Wild Wild West was part western and part spy show. I loved them both!

When I think of Steampunk authors, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells  immediately jump to mind. To me they are the forerunners of modern-day Steampunk.  As far as contemporary fiction,  I have read a few stories out of an anthology simply called Steampunk by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer and I have another one called Extraordinary Engines: The Definitive Steampunk Anthology on by TBR list. I am most definitely not up on what is currently popular reading material.

But I do know one thing I love, the creativity that has sprung from this new genre! And I have even succumbed and purchased my own little piece of Steampunk ~~ this beautiful clockwork necklace.

Mad Men is Bewitched

Image via Wikipedia

I’m pretty excited about the return of Mad Men next month. It’s been a long time, 17 months, since season four ended, and it’s a testament to the show, that after that long of a hiatus the fans are still enthusiastic for its fifth season. A lot of shows would have just fizzled out and died with that big of a break in the action. 

I remember that the first thing that popped in my head when I saw the first episode of Mad Men was that this is a grown up version of Bewitched –without the magic!  Or, at the very least, series creator, Matthew Weiner, must have been just a tad influenced by my favorite show of all times!

Just look at these amazing similarities:

• Bewitched was filmed in the 60′s~~Mad Men is set in the 60′s  
• Darrin Stephens works in an agency ~~Don Draper works in an ad agency
• Larry Tate is a prematurely white-haired ad exec ~~Roger Sterling is a prematurely white-haired ad exec 
• Samantha Stephens is a blonde witch~~Betty Draper is a blonde witch 

Come on go with me here! Regardless of whether my old favorite show, Bewitched,  influenced one of my new favorite shows, I’m sure glad Mad Men is returning soon.

….now if they could just add an Endora-like character I think Mad Men would be complete….

In to the Wilde

With all the hoopla about Charles Dickens, it’s made me think about another one of my favorite authors of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, Oscar Wilde. I think the first time I became acquainted with Mr. Wilde was when he was featured in the television series Lillie on Masterpiece Theatre back in the late 1970′s. Lillie is the story of Lillie Langtry, as well-known for her affairs with royalty as she was as a stage actress and music hall performer. The young Wilde was an admirer and friend of Langtry and so was featured prominently in the series.

I was intrigued immediately with the persona I saw on the TV screen and I wanted to read and learn more about the real man and his prose. I whipped through The Picture of Dorian Gray, then the plays The Importance of Being Earnest and Lady Windermere’s Fan. I loved the way he wrote, especially the humor.

Like Dickens, Oscar Wilde has remained in the public consciousness. There have been some really fun movies made from his work. My favorite has to be the 2002 version of The Importance of being Earnest with Colin Firth and Rupert Everett.

And I love the Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries written by Gyles Brandreth with Wilde playing the sleuth.

So, this weekend I think it’s about time to revisit one or more of those great stories. Oscar I think we have a date!

Grimm Inspiration

One of my New Year’s resolutions, (besides exercising more, eating less and being a better person), is to read more classic fiction. I was inspired by the challenge put forth my Ann and Michael from Books on the Nightstand. It’s called 12 in ’12 and the idea is to read 12 books in 2012. You may decide to read 12 sci-fi books, or maybe 12 books by a certain author, whatever tickles your fancy. I decided to pick 12 classics because it’s something I don’t usually read but feel like I should. This goes with that being a better person resolution….

I tend to gravitate to the new releases and there are so many of them I want to read. How can I possibly get off the new book merry-go-round and retreat back to the classics, especially when Goodreads, Bookpage and book bloggers keep tempting me with all those lovely, new titles!
This is funny logic coming from a person that has about 300 smelly, spine flaking, ancient books strewn all over the house. But it’s so comforting having all my old books surrounding me and I do manage to read a few of them a year, but the stack of new titles, hot off the presses seem to call my name just a tad louder.

As with most New Year’s resolutions, I promptly forgot about the challenge, and began hoarding and devouring piles of new books…I’m telling you it’s a sickness. But a program on TV reminded me of my resolution and my BOTN challenge. The show is called Grimm, and if you haven’t watched it you should. It’s a police procedural very loosely based on the fairy tales by the Grimm brothers. I too scoffed when I read about this show, especially since Once Upon a Time, another TV show based on fairy tales, came out this year, but it is terrific. Anyway, Friday’s show was based on the classic novel by John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men and in a round about way, that is how I came to remember my resolution and the challenge and get back on track!  Convoluted but true!      

So, today I took a step toward keeping my challenge promise. I went to the library and checked out a copy of the Steinbeck classic, because of course, among my many piles of books I do not own a copy!

The Help

As I’ve stated early, I am not a crowd follower when it comes to choosing a book to read or a movie to watch. A largely hyped book is one that I usually relegate to the bottom of the TBR (to be read) pile but sometimes a bit of serendipity occurs and I have actually read a book before the rest of the world jumps on the bandwagon.  The Help is one such book. It came out in February 2009 and someone at the library I worked at read it as soon as it came out, sang its praises and by summer quite a few of us had already devoured it and loved it.
We were so excited that The Help was being made into a movie, and ran right out to see it as soon as it was released. What a great adaptation of a novel! So many times the movie doesn’t live up to the images you’ve created in your mind, but in this case I felt just the opposite. The actors were brilliant and made the characters come alive on screen. Not an easy thing to do, especially when so many people have read the novel and already feel connected to the story. So, I’ve been glad to see the movie get so many award nominations.

I tuned in at the end of the SAG awards last night and was ecstatic to see Viola Davis win Best Actress,  Octavia Spencer win Best Supporting Actress and the entire cast win Outstanding Performance by a cast! Congratulations!
The best part was when the cast departed from the stage, after their win, a la The Mary Tyler Moore show. If you don’t remember the final show of MTM you should go back and watch the final few minutes it’s brilliant!