Staff Picks Audience: Adults

When I Knew by Robert Trachtenberg [Book]

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These stories of queer moments, crushes, fantasies, and coming out will make you smile, cringe, and maybe even tear up. Trachtenberg arranges the stories to oscillate between the quippy and the emotionally charged and highlights something amusing from each story with a provocative illustration. Although I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I would have loved seeing a broader representation of queerness and more stories from POC. Check out more of our LGBT Teen staff picks!

Chasing Fire by Nora Roberts [Book]

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Rowan Tripp has been fighting fires since she was 18, and is the daughter of a retired forest fire fighting legend. We meet the new crop of rookies, and get to see the intense ways they train, as well as meet the surviving crew from the previous season when they lost one of their own. The fire season is difficult enough on its own, but we find that someone hasn’t let go of last year’s tragedy. The suspense is more in the people vs. fire, with a lot of details including training, equipment and on the line fire fighting. Although this definitely qualifies as a romance, I didn’t find it too over the top, and felt the steam came more from the water vs. fire than the relationships. There is a secondary romance that adds an interesting element.

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips [Book]

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The immortal Greek gods are in reduced circumstances in the 21st century, living in a dilapidated house in London and pretty tired of each other’s company by now. Their relationships among themselves and their interactions with the modern world are perfectly in character, smart and very funny. Now that the gods have had to get day jobs, Aphrodite does phone sex, Artemis is a dog walker, and Apollo is still chasing mortal women. It’s an ingenious concept and Phillips carries it through cleverly, unpredictably and hilariously. This is Phillips’s debut novel and I can’t wait for the next.

The Last Days of Disco by Whit Stillman [DVD]

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Whit Stillman’s third feature, The Last Days of Disco, is set in New York City the early 1980’s. Here we find a group of young professionals who are all, whether they are aware or not, in a period of transition. This moment of change also mirrors the current stage of the popular music (please see the title!).

Alice (Chloë Sevigny) and Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale), somewhat recent graduates of Hampshire College, are working in the lower echelons of the publishing industry. Despite having not much in common (and they can readily admit that they may not be ideal candidates for friendship), the duo decides to share a railroad style apartment with another young woman.

The tight living quarters teamed with Charlotte’s persistent insensitivity create a great deal of tension and bickering. Furthermore, there’s also tussling over potential/previous love interests. An escape from this turmoil is the local hot spot; it’s a fashionable discotheque possibly modeled in Stillman’s memory from his days hanging out at the famed Studio 54. Chris Eigeman, a Stillman mainstay, is cast as Des McGrath. McGrath is a sardonic manager at the said Manhattan club and he ultimately realizes that the owner has some sort of a shady operation going on.

When viewing The Last Days of Disco, one can’t help appreciating the dedication in creating such memorable characters and the overall writing in general. The film is filled with quick and witty dialog… most of which you cannot imagine being spoken by actual people. In one instance, Eigeman’s character begs the question, “do yuppies even exist? No one says, ‘I am a yuppie,’ it’s always the other guy who’s a yuppie. I think for a group to exist, somebody has to admit to be part of it.”

The struggle of social identity and finding one’s general placement in society underlie this brilliant comedic drama.

P.S. After a viewing, one may discover that disco does not suck!

Last Picture Show by Peter Bogdanovich [DVD]

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In keeping with the “New Hollywood” theme, I thought we’d take a look at another Roger Corman student and another film in the Criterion Collection’s America Lost & Found series. Following his directorial debut Targets (a brilliant “Frankensteining” of Corman stock footage of Boris Karloff and a completely new script about a local assassin), Peter Bogdanovich adapted Last Picture Show with the book’s author Larry McMurthy.

The film is set in a transitional period, both for the landscape and members of the graduating high school class, in a rural north Texas town in the early 1950’s. Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shephard and Randy Quaid play the local teenagers who are thinking about their futures outside of their small home town. Relationships, the military, money and taking care of family members all play important roles on these characters’ decisions. Two adult figures, Cloris Leachman and Ben Johnson, both won Oscars for their performances in supporting roles.

Robert Surtees’s soft black and white cinematography over the dusty roads and old shop signs hang a general feeling of loneliness over Last Picture Show. Bogdanvoich’s subtle humor, rich character drama and calculated pace, earn him comparison to the French master François Truffaut. He would also continue to look to the past, mostly filming in black and white, in years to come with films like Paper Moon, What’s Up Doc? and Nickelodeon.

In The Last Picture Show, we can feel that change will come in this part of Texas and that Red River shall inevitably have its final curtain.

Major Pettigrew’s last stand : a novel by Helen Simonson [Book]

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Debut author, Simonson, has written a delightful and surprising love story that takes place in the beautiful English country town of Edgecombe St. Mary. Retired Major Pettigrew is a proper English widower who falls in love with kindhearted Pakistani widow, Mrs. Ali, much to the chagrin of the community. Drama and humor ensue.

Zombie by Fela Kuti [Music CD]

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Mermaids in Paradise [Book]

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It looks light (and it is hilarious in places), but the absurdity and the quick dialogue are thinly laid over some very serious questions about belief, cynicism, and the fate of the earth. Yes there really are mermaids, and it’s a quick-flowing, entertaining story. Millet’s language is eloquent and poetic, witty, incisive: a joy to read.

Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic [DVD]

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Marina Zenovich’s film is an excellent portrait of comedian and actor Richard Pryor. We see all the brilliance, unflinching confidence, missteps, self-destruction, triumphs and pain. Omit the Logic hits the ground running with Pryor’s earliest televised stand-up appearances with a routine resembling what Bill Cobsy was up to in the early 1960’s. However, after a disastrous set in Las Vegas, Pryor disappears and later resurfaces in San Francisco as a completely unique, uncensored entertainer.

The film highlights much of Pryor’s autobiographical material. After a fair share of belly laughing at these classic, personal routines about his childhood, relationships with women and drug use, the documentary leads us to Pryor’s difficult past. Contemporaries, colleagues and followers such as Bob Newhart, Paul Mooney, Dave Chappelle, Mel Brooks, Robin Williams and Whoopie Goldberg contribute anecdotes to Pryor’s perplexing story. It’s both noble and heartbreaking how Richard Pryor persisted to find humor in the darkest of places.

Into the Lime by The New Mendicants [Music CD]

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The New Mendicants are Joe Pernice, Norman Blake and Mike Belitksy. Pernice and Belitsky, Pernice Brothers alumn and current Toronto residents, met Blake (Teenage Fanclub) at a London gig back in 2000. About a decade later, Norman sent Joe a message: “Back in Canada at the end of next week. Want to be friends?”

Into the Lime‘s initial collaborative spark came care of submitting music for a film adaptation of Nick Hornby’s book A Long Way Down. Despite the novel’s dark subject matter, the album is a sweet sounding, almost like a modern day Everly Brothers record. Clever songwriting and close, two-part harmony are present throughout. Pernice takes many of the leads. He’s an American (once residing in Northampton, MA!) who tries to sound like a Brit. Blake’s pure, high harmonies are coming from a Scotsman maybe hoping one day to be a Byrd. The album is the perfect blending of voices and styles. The friendship and enthusiasm for this side project is clearly audible on the recording.

Bored To Death [DVD]

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Three Solo Pieces by Lubomyr Melnyk [Music CD]

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Ukrainian-Canadian composer Lubomyr Melnyk is positive that he’s the fastest pianist in the business. A boast from his website reads: “in exactly 60 minutes, Melnyk sustained an average speed of over 13 notes per second in each hand, yielding a remarkable total of 93,650 INDIVIDUAL notes.”
Despite Melnyk’s dexterity and technique, listening to Three Solo Pieces feels nothing like a frantic, fast paced album. Rather, this “Continuous Music” recording, which is filled with seamless melody and overtones, is a rich, mysterious and ethereal experience. Relying on a constant sustain pedal, this modern classical album is both cacophonous and soothing. Quite the feat and quite the recording.