The Cephalopod Coffeehouse: May 2013

Welcome one and all to the Cephalopod Coffeehouse, a cozy gathering of book lovers, meeting to discuss their thoughts regarding the tomes they enjoyed most over the previous month.  Pull up a chair, order your cappuccino and join in the fun.  If you wish to add your own review to the conversation, please sign on to the link list at the end of my post.

Title: Aline and the Others
Author and Artist: Guy Delisle

Image via R-Galaxy

Guy Delisle is a Quebecois creator best known for his travel narratives.  My Wife has been working her way through his books over the past several months, including one in the original French.  Aline was her least favorite so far but it seemed a good one for me to start with because it is the shortest, only 72 pages.  Such a lazy man am I!

Aline collects 26 short, wordless comic stories, entitled with women's names from A to Z.  "Aline" is the first, "Zoé" the last.  The stories offer a deeply twisted exploration of female sexuality.  I won't kid you.  There's a lot of sex in this book - not for children.  However, it's far from sexy - more a visual approximation of what it would look like if figures in abstract sculpture decided to get it on.

Not all of the stories are about sex.  Francine is a small child, sitting crying on the floor.  Her tears run out so she storms off to the kitchen for a glass of water.  Her fluids replenished, she goes back to the same spot and resumes crying.  Irene manages to remove her arms while examining herself in the mirror, much to her own amusement.  The rest of her story recounts her struggle to get them back on.

Delisle did create a companion volume from the male perspective: Albert and the Others.  While Aline is amusing, I can't say I'm particularly interested in reading more of the same.  I will reserve judgement of Delisle's work in general until I've read his travel works.

Are you eager to share your own review of a book you enjoyed over the past month?  Please sign on to the link list below.  I'll keep the list open until the end of the day.  Future meetings shall be held on the final Friday of each month.  June's bloghop is thus set for June 28th - new link list to be posted tomorrow.

Baseball Tunes: Tessie

"Tessie" has been associated with Boston baseball since the 1903 World Series.  The team then known as the Boston Americans came from behind to win that year's championship with the support of their Royal Rooters who bellowed the song from the stands.  The song itself comes from a long-forgotten Broadway musical called The Silver Slipper.
 

The Dropkick Murphys, a Boston institution in their own right, updated the song in 2004:



The song more closely associated with the Red Sox these days is "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond.  After the Boston Marathon bombing in April, the song was played and sung in baseball stadiums across America in tribute to the victims.  Most notably, the song was played at Yankee Stadium, home to the Red Sox' hated arch-rivals.  I really want the following video to be more than it is but it's the best recording I could find of that moment:



More satisfying is the following from the Salt Lake City Marathon:



Eyes still dry?  This one might do the trick. Neil Diamond himself showed up at Fenway in Boston to show his support and lead the crowd in a rousing rendition:



The lesson is clear.  Music can heal and small gestures are powerful.  "Where it began, I can't begin to knowin'..."

 
My Baseball Fantasy

Vermont League: won, 6-2-2 (42-29-9 overall, 1st place out of 12 teams)
Maryland League: won, 4-3-3 (38-36-6, 4th of 10)
Public League: 84 Rotisserie points (2nd of 12)
My Player of the Week: Anibal Sanchez (Starting Pitcher, Tigers) with 1 win, 12 strikeouts, a 0.00 ERA and a 0.44 WHIP

Photo via Bleacher Nation

Sanchez only had one start last week but it was a beauty: a one-hit, complete game shutout against the Twins.  It wasn't even the best game of his career.  He pitched a no-hitter in just his 13th Major League start on September 6, 2006.  I've got him in both the Vermont and Maryland leagues. 

Family Movie Night: Tales from Earthsea

Title: Tales from Earthsea
Director: Goro Miyazaki
Original Release: 2006
Choice: Our Girl's
My Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Image via Wikipedia

Tales from Earthsea, based on the Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le Guin, was the directorial debut for Goro Miyazaki, son of the legendary Hayao Miyazaki.  The hero Arren is an unusual one (more on that in a bit).  Having committed a horrible crime, he runs away from his castle home.  A wizard named Sparrowhawk saves his life and takes him under wing (so to speak).  After more misadventures, the two make their way to the farm home of Tenar.  They are pursued by slavers employed by an evil wizard, Lord Cob.



The film has received mixed reviews, both domestically in Japan and internationally.  Le Guin herself was displeased with the film as Miyazaki changed much of her original story.  The narrative is complicated - not exactly unusual for either Le Guin or Studio Ghibli - and can be difficult to follow. 

However, the movie is generally praised, even in poor reviews, for its visual presentation.  Most impressive to me is the use of light, not something one normally considers in regards to an animated film.  In general, I think Ghibli is at its best with landscapes and Tales from Earthsea is extraordinary.  If you look at a hillside on a sunny day in the real world, its color is vivid, though hardly uniform.  Animation rarely reflects such subtle shading but Earthsea does so marvelously.  Furthermore, much of the story is set at either dawn or dusk.  Shadows lengthen and colors deepen accordingly.  I have often perceived Impressionist influence, Monet especially, on the art of Ghibli in its landscapes.  Monet himself did numerous studies of the effect of light at different times of the day and the year.  He, of course, was in turn influenced by the Japanese artists Hokusai and Hiroshige.  All comes full circle.

***SPOILER ALERT***

Arren's crime is patricide.  He kills his father, the king, and steals his sword.  This is difficult to reconcile with his generally sympathetic character.  Arren's moral ambiguity is explored thoroughly late in the story, though it is unclear whether or not he was driven to the crime by outside sorcery or by his own internal conflict.  At the end of the film, he heads home to accept responsibility for his crime.

***END OF SPOILER***

Multi-generational considerations:

• The film was rated PG-13 in the US for violence.

Roland Garros 2013: My Picks

Photo via melty.fr

Roland Garros (a.k.a. The French Open) begins in Paris today.  RG is the world's biggest clay court tournament, the second of four Majors on the tennis calendar.  For The Squid, a couple of changes are afoot.

Change #1: We ditched satellite television about a month ago.  For the most part, we were already watching all of our shows by DVR so streaming via Hulu or Amazon Prime works just as well.  Live sporting events were the big question mark.  Most importantly, would I still be able to watch the tennis Majors?  NBC Sports appears to be fairly accommodating.  We shall see.

Change #2: It's time to streamline my tennis posts - weekly rather than daily during Majors.  The daily posts were fun but burdensome and inflexible.  If I spend more time analyzing draws and schedules than actually watching and enjoying tennis, there's a problem.  I realize I may be the only one who really cares but The Armchair Squid began life as a tennis blog and I'd like to hold onto that element as part of the broader mission.  Increasingly, the tennis posts were feeling like a chore - time for a change.

What better way to kick off the tournament than with my picks to win the men's and women's singles titles...

My choice on the men's side is an obvious one: Rafael Nadal (3rd seed, Spain).

Photo via AceShowbiz

Nadal has played this tournament eight times and has lost a grand total of one match - a breathtaking achievement under-appreciated in the broader sports world.  Picking anyone else seems absurd.  Novak Djokovic (1st, Serbia) is the biggest threat.  Eventually, he will win RG, completing his Career Slam.  I don't think this is the year.  His results have dropped of late, whereas Rafa is peaking at the right time.  If the two meet, it will be during the semifinals.

My women's pick is more of a stretch: Agnieszka Radwanska (4th, Poland).

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Radwanska is the highest-ranked player without a Major title and RG has been kind to first-time Slam champions in recent years (Francesca Schiavone, Na Li, Ana Ivanovic).  As such, Radwanska doesn't appear too much of a stretch.  However, despite the smaller physique and tactical acumen which would generally lead one to expect otherwise, Radwanska is not at her best on clay.  In her favor, though, is the fact that the players ranked above her aren't either.  Even Serena Williams (1st, USA), world's greatest female athlete, and Maria Sharapova (2nd, Russia), defending champion, are most vulnerable on dirt.  Williams is currently in top form and should that continue, there's not a player on earth who can touch her.  Should she stumble, Radwanska might just be the one to capitalize.

On the Coffee Table: I Never Liked You

Title: I Never Liked You
Writer and Artist: Chester Brown

Image via Wikipedia

Chester Brown was a big part of my A-Z Challenge this year as artist and writer for four of the 26 comic books I featured, including two of my favorites: Louis Riel #4 and Yummy Fur #27.  As noted in my A-Z post, Yummy Fur issues 26-30 were collected in graphic novel form as I Never Liked You.  The story is an autobiographical account of Brown's teenage years in the Montreal suburb of Chateauguay. 

Chester's a quiet guy.  Kids at school make fun of him because they know he never swears - strictly forbidden by his parents to do so even away from school.  He has friends, though, many of them female.  One of the girls, Carrie, is clearly in love with him but he has no idea how to respond to it.  His true affections are directed towards another girl in the neighborhood, Sly.  Much of the story revolves around Chester's inability to relate to the women in his life, especially his mother, whose struggles with mental illness feature prominently in the narrative. 

Just as I wrote in regards to Louis Riel, much of the power of Brown's work derives from its simplicity.  Dialogue is sparse, the black and white panels uncomplicated and to the point.  Chester shuts the people in his life out but as the readers, we are afforded an intimate view.  He doesn't divulge many secrets but he doesn't need to.  For us, at least, the important details are made plain enough.

I'm still undecided as to how I feel about Chester Brown.  While I thoroughly enjoyed both this book and Louis Riel, the other works I've explored thus far have either disgusted me (Ed the Happy Clown #2) or left me cold (Underwater #2).  I suppose I can say that I prefer his non-fiction to his fiction.  I am genuinely curious about his other autobiographical works.

On the Coffee Table: Extraordinary Gents, Vol. 2

Title: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II
Writer: Alan Moore
Artist: Kevin O'Neill

Image via Wikipedia

The League of Extraordinary Gentelmen is Moore's and O'Neill's spoof on the superhero team genre, incorporating characters of Victorian era literature.  The League consists of Mina Murray (Dracula), Allan Quartermain (King Solomon's Mines), Hawley Griffin (The Invisible Man), Henry Jeckyll/Edward Hyde and Captain Nemo (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea).  My review of Volume I can be found here.

Volume II draws heavily from the works of H.G. Wells.  The overarching plot is based on War of the Worlds.  In addition to Griffin, Dr. Moreau plays a vital role in the story. 

The fun of The League is in waiting to see who will pop up next, what other literary references will find their way into the story.  Many of the allusions are obvious, others more subtle.  The League lodges at an inn called "The Bleak House," for instance.  Just as with Volume I, the story whets my appetite for the source material as much as for The League story itself.

Definitely for adults only: depictions of brutal violence between league members as well as a nude sex scene with Mina and Allan.

Baseball Tunes: Thank God I'm a Country Boy

Since the glory days of the 1970s, the Baltimore Orioles have played John Denver's "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" during the seventh-inning stretch.  I have never understood this tradition.  I grew up in Maryland - granted DC area, not Baltimore.  I know the town well enough to say that it's about as urban as an American city can be.  How anyone in Baltimore can claim to be a country boy (or girl) is beyond me.  Maybe Earl Weaver was a John Denver fan.

At any rate, it's a fun song.  My favorite rendition, however, is Jim Nabors's performance on The Muppet Show:



Nabors is actually quite an accomplished singer - his recordings a fair sight better than the usual celebrity vanity project.  He made his television singing debut as Gomer Pyle - his career-defining role - on The Andy Griffith Show:




My Baseball Fantasy

Vermont League: won, 6-4 (36-27-7 overall, 1st place out of 12 teams)
Maryland League: lost, 3-6-1 (34-33-3, 4th of 10)
Public League: 84 Rotisserie points (2nd of 12)
My Player of the Week: Carlos Gonzalez (Left Fielder, Rockies) with 3 home runs, 8 RBI, 8 runs, 3 stolen bases and a .375 batting average

Photo via Denver Westword Blogs