PERCHANCE to DREAM

I'm bingeing on Bard-related books this month. First, I finished The Serpent of Venice, Christopher Moore's fabulous follow-up to Fool (pardon me while I alliterate), which gleefully mashes up plots and characters from King Lear, Othello and The Merchant Of Venice.

And now I've segued into Kate Danley's Queen Mab, a fairy fantasy woven in and out of Romeo and Juliet. Danley had me at the first hint of turning Mercutio—one of the most lamented of all the Bard's untimely deaths—into the hero of her story.

In tales of the Fae, death need never be final if an author has the chutzpah and imagination to rewrite a story we think we already know. Fortunately, Danley has both.

Queen Mab is a figure from ancient Celtic folklore, the Fairy Queen known as the Bringer of Dreams. In Danley's story, three generations after the Roman demi-god, Faunus, tricks beautiful Mab and breaks her heart, the two immortals enter into a wager for sport—a chess game in which two mighty houses of Verona are pitted against each other: the Capulets and the Montagues.

Mab brings dreams to sleeping mortals.

But the game has scarcely begun when Mab finds herself bewitched by Mercutio. A witty, compassionate mortal man allied with neither house, he sees beyond Mab's magical aspect to the complex and beautiful soul beneath. She and Mercutio become lovers, but the stakes of the game rise fearfully as Faunus secretly plots to steal Mab's power and banish her from the world.

In Danley's view, all the events in Shakepeare's play—sudden brawls, reversals of fortune, changes of heart—are chalked up to fairy interference. This allows Danley to use large sections of dialogue from the play (not scary: written as prose) in the unfolding of her story.

In one clever invention, Mercutio's show-stopping "Queen Mab speech" becomes his desperate attempt to hold onto her memory, fading like a dream, after she charms him into forgetting her for his own safety.

An untimely end, but only in the Bard's version

Using so much of Shakespeare's text might feel like cheating. But the original material that Danley's weaves in—the love story of Mab and Mercutio, appearances by Faunus, and the Old Gods—is such a great idea, and so well-integrated into the plot of the play, that it draws us in. (Mab and Mercutio even get their own balcony scene!)

The formatting of this self-published book can be a bit wonky from page to page, with the expected typos sprinkled in here and there. Of more concern to me was overuse of the word "upon"—sometimes twice in the same sentence—when "on" would serve just as well.

But this is a pet peeve of mine; so many authors seem to believe that "upon" makes their prose sound more historical.

It also feels as if the book were written very fast. A little more time spent on building resonance, particularly in the closing chapters, to appreciate the plot twists, would have been nice. But Queen Mab is also a fast read (due in part to its enormous print), and the sheer audacity of Danley's premise kept me happily engaged.

Another guest appearance by Mab.

Rewriting the fates of classic literary characters has become its own sub-genre in recent fiction. (Hey, I did it in Alias Hook!) Moore and Danley cheerfully rewrite Shakespearean plays the way we wish they had all turned out. Still, one of my favorites of the bunch reimagines the lives of the playwrights themselves, not the plays.

In Elizabeth Bear's outstanding Ink and Steel, Christopher Marlowe (Kit Marly) is resurrected in the Court of the Fairy Queen after that unfortunate incident at Deptford. There, he becomes the innamorato of several important fairies while helping to train his successor, Will Shakespeare, in the art of weaving magical fairy spells into the gorgeous texts of his plays to protect the mortal realm of Elizabeth.

Every idea on every page of this two-book tale (including the sequel, Hell and Earth) is rich, complex, and literally beguiling.

Gee, I think I'll go read it again...

(Above: Queen Mab by Gustav Dore.)
(Above: The Death of Mercutio by Edwin Austin Abbey)

TWICE UPON A TIME

Charming cast, lush production, but no surprises in Cinderella


With Once Upon A Time still knocking 'em dead on TV, the folks at Disney now realize what profits can be made from repackaging their old cartoon fairy tale classics into new live-action formats. Last year, they tested the cinematic waters with Maleficent, which was bold enough to re-tell the story of Sleeping Beauty from the viewpoint of its "evil" fairy villainess.

Flawed it may have been, but it was such a radical retelling of the familiar story that it earned its own place in the Disney canon.

The latest Disney live-action reboot, Cinderella, sticks much closer to the original story (the Disney version, anyway), and so doesn't feel quite as fresh. Yes, the production values are absolutely luscious, and Kenneth Branagh's skilled direction imbues the story with humor, tension, and emotional complexity.

Diversity in the realm, just not in the starring roles

He's even mindful enough to populate his canvas with many visible people of color, although mostly as extras (except for the always impressive Nonso Anozie as the captain of the Royal Guard).

But the difference is in the writing. Scriptwriter Linda Woolverton, who wrote Maleficent (also Disney's Beauty and the Beast and Alice in Wonderland) comes from a generation of women who grew up chafing against the passivity of Disney cartoon heroines.

Chris Weitz, who wrote Cinderella, does his best to provide more of a personality for both his heroine, and her Prince, than they had in the cartoon version, and he succeeds pretty well.

But he doesn't have the same feminist fire. He's content to stick to the same bare bones of the plot—complete with friendly, live-action mice (although at least in this version, they don't actually talk)—and tell the same old story in much the same old way.

Irredeemable: Stepmom, sisters don't get much sympathy

Still, what the story lacks in innovation, the film makes up for in sheer loveliness, performed by a thoroughly engaging cast. It's great to see Ben Chaplin back on the big screen in the prologue as little Ella's charming merchant father.

He and his beloved wife (a blonde Hayley Atwell, TV's Agent Carter) raise their daughter in an idyllic country cottage surrounded by animals, beauty, and love. Her mother teaches Ella to "Have courage and be kind," advice she clings to when her beloved mother dies.

Years later, when Ella is a young woman (now played by Lily James, Lady Rose from Downton Abbey), her father remarries. No sooner does Ella's new Stepmother (a ferociously red-haired Cate Blanchett) move in with her two petulant grown daughters (Holliday Grainger and Sophie McShera), than Ella's father also dies, leaving her at the mercy of her cruel, resentful new step-family. She becomes their kitchen drudge, her quarters removed to the drafty attic, her only friends those sympathetic mice.

Madden, James: hope they're not planning a red wedding

Why does she put up with it? Weitz invents a promise made to her parents to look after the house where they were all so happy once. Well, okay...

He's more successful with a scene in the woods where Ella meets a handsome young stranger calling himself Kit (Richard Madden, Robb Stark from Game of Thrones) whom she doesn't realize is the Prince.

It's because Kit is so beguiled by the girl's beauty and kindness (she talks him and his hunting party out of pursuing a deer, which must be some kind of Disney penance for Bambi), that he orchestrates the whole royal ball ploy, open to all the marriageable ladies in the kingdom, just to find her again.

A coach to flip your gourd for

Some sections are a bit slow: Ella bravely facing oppression from her step-family, or the overly-lengthy ball sequence. Yes, it establishes Ella and Kit's connection, but that first dance goes on forever. With her blonde hair and dark brows, James so resembles Daenerys Targaryen, the dragon girl in Game of Thrones, you might find yourself wishing for a flying dragon to come along and jolt things back to life.

But Helena Bonham Carter is loopy fun as the fairy godmother. The first transformation scene is well done, and the gold filigree coach conjured from a pumpkin is outstanding! But Branagh's piece de resistance is the coach's mad dash away from the palace as the clock strikes midnight, footmen morphing back into lizards, the driver becoming a goose again, snow-white steeds sprouting mouse ears and devolving down into rodent form, all while on the run.

It's a brilliant sequence that makes up for the unadventurous familiarity of the story.

Identity theft: mouse-eared steeds devolve before our eyes

Due next year: a live-action Beauty and the Beast, written by Woolverton. Stay tuned.

REVENGE of the FOOL

Here's why I love Christopher Moore.

His latest comic novel is The Serpent of Venice, an entertaining pastiche of Othello, and The Merchant of Venice, with a soupcon of Poe tossed in, and a guest appearance by Marco Polo.

There's a moment late in the story when the lady Emilia has cause to be even more horrified than usual by the schemes of her devious husband, Iago.

"Thou mendacious fuckweasel!" she spits at him.

Talk about le mot juste!

Having gleefully played havoc with King Lear in a previous novel, Fool, which brings that  character front and center to tell the story his way, Moore has another go at Shakespeare in this sequel. This time, the wily and resourceful Pocket, fool to a king and consort to a queen, is on a diplomatic mission to Venice that turns into a crusade for revenge.
 

Moore sets his tale in a recognizable historical period, although not the one Shakespeare envisioned. He moves the action of the two Venetian plays back in time by about 300 years (to 13th Century Venice), so they sync up with the more medieval setting of Fool.

But, like Shakespeare, Moore manipulates the historical setting to grapple with issues familiar in his (and our) world. 

With the irrepressible Pocket as his protagonist, Moore's tone is unfailingly comic throughout—witty, profane, brash, and scatalogical. But the issues he tilts against with such vigor are serious, from excoriating the idea of religious warfare as a twisted kind of patriotism, to the notion of a corrupt merchant class that's "too big to fail."

As this series progresses (oh, please, let there be more Pocket stories!), Moore turns some of the Bard's most timeless tragedies on their ears, and restores justice—for good and ill—to some of Shakespeare's most deserving characters.

Most satisfying of all, Moore demonstrates how a few smart women (most of whom were only minor characters to Shakespeare), and an honest fool can subvert even the most mendacious political fuckery.

Bravo!

Christopher Moore, posing as his alter ego!

PAPER or PLASTIC?

Immerse me, Baby!

Confessions of a logomaniac
   
It's like saying goodbye to an illicit lover. You knew going in that it couldn't last forever, knew you'd have exactly so much time together, and no more. You try to draw it out, postpone the inevitable, but sooner or later, you need that climax more than anything. And then it's all over.

Yeah, reading a great book is like that.

When I read, I want the full monty—to touch the paper, smell the ink, hear the rustle of pages, in all ways savor the strangeness and exotica of the world I'm holding in my hands. Logomania, they call it: a sensual obsession with books.

And it looks like I'm not alone. According to a popularly-shared recent study in the Washington Post, the new generation of millennials—particularly those in the 18-29 age range—prefer reading for pleasure on real, old-fashioned paper-and-ink books. Who knew? They claim reading is a more immersive experience while holding a real book in their hands. They also say they're much less distracted by the urge to multitask—check their email or Twitter feed—than when they are reading something digitally.

Hear, hear! I suppose a hand-held reading device is more convenient than lugging a sackful of books around, especially when traveling. But it's not for me. I tend to read slowly, which I wish I could say was a careful habit acquired during my years as a book critic for the SF Chronicle.

 I need pages to tell Lannisters from Starks.

But the truth is, I'm just a plodder, going back frequently through stuff I've already read to make sure I've understood something correctly, or to re-read a previous scene in light of new developments in the plot.

How can I scroll backwards through pages or chapters of text on a monitor and still keep my place? What if I have to keep referring to a cast of characters at the front of the book, or footnotes, or a glossary at the end?

Yes, the paper-free society of the future will be ecologically correct, a boon for the planet, the trees, and the rain forests. And any gadget that gets written matter into the hands of at-risk (of not reading) youth is a good thing, although I can't understand why digital is superior in that respect; a book already is a hand-held device.

As a writer, of course, if anyone wants to read my books via Kindle, braille, Morse-code, or an old View-Master, I couldn't be more thrilled. But as a reader, all I ask is the right to one simple, tactile pleasure that doesn't have to be recharged, connected, or booted up for me to enjoy.

Sure, they probably used to say the same sort of thing about Guttenberg and the printing press, back in the day: how can you claim to have savored the total reading experience in all its privilege and majesty if some monk didn't go blind transcribing every precious one-of-a-kind page for your pleasure?

And I know the technoids charge that we logomaniacs are making a fetish out of an inanimate object with no intrinsic value of its own beyond the story it conveys. But it's not that I idolize the sacred idea of the book; it's the thing itself I treasure, a comforting presence, like an old friend.

Paper breathes, ink bleeds, a book bends and folds and whispers to the hand in a way a piece of plastic never can. Even after I finish reading a wonderful book, I still occasionally touch the cover or fondly riffle through the pages. It's over between us, yet it's a great comfort to me to keep this tangible relic of all we shared so close at hand.

Parting could never be such sweet sorrow from a hunk of cold plastic.

(Top: Photo by Robbert van der Steeg)

THE ART OF THE REEL

JMW Turner, Fisherman on the Lagoon, Midnight, 1840

Hey kids, loyal reader Judi G. just tipped me off to a couple of fabulous-sounding San Francisco art exhibits.

What makes this news blog-worthy? Each of these shows celebrates art and/or artists featured in two of my favorite recent movies!

Fans of the Mike Leigh film Mr. Turner will rejoice to hear about the show J. M. W. Turner: Painting Set Free, coming this summer to the de Young. Organized by Tate Britain, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, it claims to be the first major exhibition to focus on the last 15 years of Turner's life (roughly, 1835-1850), when his technique was at its most experimental and his work most expressive.

Organizers promise more than sixty oil paintings and watercolors culled from collections around the world. Including—surprise!—a suite of figurative paintings depicting Dido and Aeneas. (Well, at least, figures can be spotted playing out their dramas amid the roiling landscapes.) These were the last of Turner's works to be shown in his lifetime.

Production still from Song of the Sea

The Turner exhibit will run from June 20 to September 20, 2015, so mark your datebook now.

Meanwhile, over at the Cartoon Art Museum, an exhibit just opened that couldn't be more timely. It's devoted to the Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon, the brain trust behind the eye-poppingly gorgeous animated feature Song of the Sea, as well as The Secret of Kells.

The show is called The Art of Song of the Sea and The Secret of Kells, and features original and digital concept art from both Oscar-nominated films—revealing how a movie's design evolves from concept sketches to finished artwork.

Me, I'm looking forward to gazing into some of those complex still images to drink in all the details!

This show went up on February 21 and continues to June 21, 2015.  Maybe I'll see you there!

SEAL CHANGE

Celtic selkie lore comes alive in dazzling Song of the Sea

Anyone who loves seals (and who doesn't, around here?) will be utterly charmed by the magical Irish animated feature Song of the Sea. Ditto anyone with a taste for ancient Celtic folklore, fairy tales and mythology.

Directed by Tomm Moore, whose previous film was the lovely Secret of the Kells, inspired by the famed illuminated manuscript, this Oscar-nominated follow-up combines traditional tales of the selkies (seals who transform into humans on land) with a stunning visual palette.

Every hand-drawn frame of this movie is ravishing. You keep finding yourself reaching for the remote in the darkened theatre, trying to pause the image so you can study every gorgeous detail.

Scripted by William Collins, Song of the Sea offers a fresh take on the old legends. It's set in a recognizably modern world, but a world in which ancient gods and heroes, fair folk, witches, and magical beings are always nearby.

Underwater grotto: pay attention to those rocks

In traditional tales, female selkies come on shore, take off their sealskins, and dance on the beach in human form. There's usually a dazzled human fisherman who sees it all, hides the sealskin, and marries the selkie in her womanly form. But the selkie must always return to the sea eventually, or die.

In Moore's film, Conor (voice of Brendan Gleeson) is a lighthouse keeper on a wild, rugged promontory jutting out of the sea off the Irish coast. He has a little boy named Ben, and a very pregnant wife, the beautiful, mysterious Bronagh (Lisa Hannigan), who sings ancient folk songs to Ben and teaches him to make music with a nautilus shell. But on the morning Ben wakes up to discover he has a new baby sister, Saoirse, his beloved mum has disappeared.

Growing up on their windswept island, Ben's best friend is his floppy sheepdog, Cú. But kid sister Saoirse is kind of a pain; she doesn't speak, and has an unsettling habit of wandering off to the water's edge—where, in one of the movie's happiest images, dozens of seal heads are always popping up out of the water to greet her. (Underwater, in this movie, they sound more like whales than seals, but they're still so cool!)

Happy seals!

 On Saoirse's sixth birthday, their granny (Fionnula Flanagan), removes the kids to the mainland to lead a civilized life, but they run away, determined to find their way home. Their journey back to the sea is beautifully rendered. The landscapes have the softly-blended textures and rich, muted colors of pastel chalk drawings, and every rock formation, whether nestled in the underbrush or protruding up out of the sand in the beach scenes, bears the delicate tracery of ancient Runic designs. A marvelous interlude occurs at a Holy Well, a shrine in the countryside festooned with candles, painted icons, and rustic statues.

Holy Well: not all the coolest images are underwater

All of these details emphasize the nearness of the Otherworld, and as the siblings find their way home, they also take a larger journey through the heart of Celtic lore. Informing all is the legend of a giant so traumatized by the death of his wife that his mother, the Owl Witch, casts a spell and turns him into a rock so he won't have to feel any more sorrow.

She's banished the emotions of all the other gods and heroes, as well, and as the children discover fairies, elves, and the Owl Witch herself alive in their world, they also encounter the remains of ancient heroes turned to stone, silent faces etched into granite like the famous chess pieces from the Isle of Lewis, awaiting the magic that will set them free.

Look at the detail in this image!

Moore's film is also an endearing tale of a young girl who discovers her own unique destiny. (And she doesn't have to become that tired modern cliché, the "kick-ass heroine," to do it.)

Ben learns to love and respect his little sister for her special gifts, but it's up to Saoirse to save the day and reverse the spell, releasing scores of Celtic heroes from their stony prisons in a gorgeous, eye-popping finale.

And not even those whose feelings have been turned to stone could resist Moore's gently moving conclusion. Humorous, heartfelt, and dazzling to look at, Song of the Sea has it all.


(If you'd like to do something wonderful for real live seals, consider making a donation or volunteering your time at the Marine Mammal Center. Pinnipeds are having a rough time along the California Coast right now. These guys need you help! )

ALL DOLLED UP

As we all know, Oscar Season isn't complete without the Return of the (dreaded) Oscar Barbies! Yes, I got out the ol' doll trunks once again on Sunday morning before the show and cast a few of my old dolls as this year's Best Actress nominees.

In Oscar Barbie Land, it's all about the props. Most fun to do was Reese Witherspoon's character in Wild, the inexperienced hiker with her gigantic "Packzilla." A beat-up old khaki make-up pouch I found in the back of a drawer stands in for the backpack.

(And many thanks to Art Boy for figuring out how to attach it to her!)

All the other items are vintage Barbie accessories—which is why her hiking boots are (cringe) bubblegum pink! Not everything in the Barbie universe had to be pink, back in the early 60s, when the doll first came on the market: notice the road map, cookpot and sneakers. Once upon a time, she was chic, but that was before she started hanging out with those tarty Disney Princess dolls.

Here's the rest of the lineup: Marion Cotillard clutching her pink slip in Two Days, One Night, Felicity Jones, in a perfectly vintage '60s outfit in The Theory of Everything, and winner Julianne Moore, trying to hold on to her memory in Still Alice.

The fifth nominee was the easiest: Gone Girl.

In other news, 6 out of my top 8 Oscar predictions were right on this year.

(I was actually 10 for 12, if you count the four extra titles I cited in my Miscellany category.
Although my plug for Ida was not technically a prediction, it was more like wishful thinking. Anyway, I'm thrilled that it won!))

Unfortunately, the two categories I glaringly missed were Best Picture and Best Director. D'oh!

I should know by now to stick to the trail of the pre-Oscar craft guild awards; that's how I've managed to look so smart these last few years. The 2015 Oscars aligned with the guild winners right on schedule, including the wins for Alejandro González Iñárritu (Directors Guild) and Birdman (Producers Guild).

But this year I was really pulling for my favorite (Boyhood), so I ignored my own sage advice. Next year I’ll be back on my game!

Curtain call for the entire 2015 lineup

THE (OSCAR) GAME IS AFOOT

Only Sherlock could predict this year's Academy Award winners

Okay, it's that time of year when I typically dazzle readers with my Sherlockian deductive powers and predict the upcoming Academy Award winners. But the cold, hard truth is, by the time all the Hollywood craft guilds—directors (DGA), producers (PGA), writers (WGA), and screen actors (SAG)—have weighed in with their own pre-Oscar award ceremonies, not to mention the pre-game warmup show of the Golden Globes last month, it's pretty easy to follow the trends and pick the front-runners.

But not this year.

I wouldn't say all bets are off; there are clear favorites in three out of the four acting categories. But the battle for some of the top prizes is turning into an epic slugfest. between two (or three) very tough and worthy competitors. Nobody gets a cakewalk this year, including me; I really have to put my so-called deductive powers to the test. So here goes:

Ellar Coltrane grows up before our eyes in Boyhood

 BEST PICTURE Boyhood. Of the eight nominees, we can eliminate the four films whose directors were not nominated in their category—which (surprisingly) includes Clint Eastwood for American Sniper, even though it's made a ton of moolah at the box office these last few weeks.

There's a chance Birdman might still fly off with the gold

A month ago, Boyhood was a slam-dunk for the gold. Director Richard Linklater's completely original concept redefines the process of filmmaking and the art of storytelling in audacious new ways. But its biggest challenger, Birdman, has come on strong in the post-season awards. You can see why Hollywood loves Birdman—it's all about showbiz and acting, the cult of celebrity, and the cultural impact—for good or ill—of the movies. Its director, Alejandro González Iñárritu, has already been anointed with a DGA award, the film won for Best Ensemble at the SAGs, and craft guild members also vote for the Oscars.

Still, I'm voting my heart on this one. Yes, Birdman is wildly entertaining. But Boyhood offers a resonant glimpse into modern family life that will endure, in addition to its amazing contribution to the craft of making cinema.

Chalk up a victory for Eddie Redmayne

BEST DIRECTOR  Richard Linklater, Boyhood. Even more than usual this year, these two categories are joined at the hip, as both Boyhood and Birdman represent such singular director's visions. Most egregious omission in this category? Ava DuVernay, for her extraordinarily powerful and accomplished handling of Best Picture nominee Selma.
   
BEST ACTOR Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything. Redmayne has the buzz (and, significantly, the SAG award) for his precise and nuanced turn as Dr. Stephen Hawking, no matter how the Birdman/Boyhood smackdown plays out.

Julianne Moore: it's finally her turn

BEST ACTRESS Julianne Moore, Still Alice. This is the only sure thing in the big four categories. Moore has already won every other prize for her performance as a woman coping with Early-Onset Alzheimer's. And with four previous nominations, it's perceived as her turn to win.   

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR J. K. Simmons, Whiplash. Like, Moore, he's already won all the preliminary prizes.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Patricia Arquette, Boyhood. As a divorced mom raising two kids, Arquette brings plucky, real-life-sized humanity to this film, and has been recognized for it at all the early award shows.

Family gal: Arquette in Boyhood

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Birdman. This wry, well-crafted screenplay deserves to edge out Boyhood in this category. (Linklater's film doesn't feel scripted—which, of course, is a large part of its charm.) And since Iñárritu also co-wrote the script, this is the Academy's best chance to give him his Oscar if he's aced out of the directing prize.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY The Imitation Game. It's popular enough to be nominated in eight categories, and this is the best chance the Alan Turing codebreaking biopic has at striking gold.   

MISCELLANY The only Foreign Language Film nominee I saw was Ida, which I adored, so I'm rooting for it, even if I can't predict this category. The much-nominated Grand Budapest Hotel looks poised to win the Costume and Production Design awards, but Birdman should fly off with the Cinematography prize. And since I saw none of the Animated Feature nominees, you guys are on your own for that one!

(The 87th Annual Academy Awards airs Sunday, February 22, 5 p.m. on ABC.)

THE WILL TO CREATE

What, you mean you didn't jet out of beautiful, balmy California for ice-encrusted New York City last week to catch the Matisse show at the MOMA before it left town?


Well, guess what: neither did I.

But that's okay. For all of us art-loving slackers, the New York Times has kindly posted a slideshow of the entire exhibition online!

As a painter, Henri Matisse was renowned for his audacious use of color and vibrant patterns (not to mention his long-standing rivalry with contemporary Pablo Picasso).

Matisse's "The Green Line" (1905), a portrait of his wife, Amelie, her face bisected by a subtle stripe of green, basically ushered in the Fauve movement and helped launch what we now think of as "Modern" art.

But the recent MOMA exhibit was devoted entirely to Matisse's series of marvelous paper cut-outs. These were begun around 1940, when Matisse was entering his 70s. Debilitated by cancer surgery, demoralized by the separation from his wife of over 40 years, and confined to his bed or a chair most of the time, Matisse still found a way to make art.

Armed with scissors and sheets of paper hand-washed by his assistants in bold gouache colors, he produced an extraordinary variety of images devoted to shape, color, and movement.

Just look at these examples! I love the way they bounce around the canvas like living things. There's nothing remotely static about any of these images. They percolate with life.

As art critic Holland Cotter points out in the text that accompanies the NYT slideshow, some of the work became studies for larger pieces. The famed Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence, on the French Riviera, features amazing stained glass windows and vestments designed by Matisse, based on his cut-outs.

It would have been great to see this show in person, to examine the smaller pieces in all their richness, up close, and  be happily dwarfed by the larger pieces! "The Parakeet and the Mermaid" (1952) is roughly 12' by 25'! I want to go swimming in this picture!

But I think this slideshow is the next best thing. Amazing what an intrepid spirit, along with the unquenchable will to create can achieve!

ROBUST GRANDEUR

If you're interested in art or history or both, hie thee hence, pronto, to see Mr. Turner. Mike Leigh's cinematic valentine to expressionistic English landscape artist J. M. W. Turner may be a bit too stately paced at times, and short on dialogue, but it's also absorbing and kind of rhapsodic, in a weird, curmudgeony way.

It's funny that Leigh, purveyor of such life-sized, English working-class dramas as High Hopes, Secrets and Lies, and the brilliant Another Year, should feel such affinity for the painter of wild, larger-than-life canvases from what's now known as the Romantic era. (Which also spawned lyric poets like Byron, Keats and Shelley, and the rise of Gothic melodrama.)

Although, besides the exaltation of Nature, there is nothing "romantic" about Turner's work. Rather, call it furious, with enormous, turbulent skies, mostly shrouded in mist, fog, or raging storms, that dwarf the few tiny humans on land and their petty concerns. Furious, too, is Tim Spall, onscreen just about every minute as the driven Turner.

One Spall grunt is worth a thousand words.

Detractors complain that Spall simply grunts his way through the film. This is partly correct, although his Turner proves himself capable of uttering the gallant, ornate language of the day when need be. ("Now I must throw myself into the arms of Morpheus.") But his grunts—of pleasure, relief, dismay, and especially disdain—become a wry language unto themselves. Spall expresses more in a single grunt than many actors can manage in pages of dialogue.

I'm not a Turner scholar, so I can't say how accurate a portrait Leigh creates of Turner's relationship to his deeply wounded and resentful wife (the mighty Ruth Sheen) and the grown daughters he apparently ignores. Or to the housekeeper who adores him and suffers his occasional random sexual advances in silence. (Dorothy Atkinson is very touching in the role, although her character is allowed to become almost a comic caricature mid-film.) Or to the sweet, earthy landlady (Marion Bailey) who becomes his mistress in later years.

Turner's family do not share his devotion to Art.

But Leigh paints a lively depiction of Turner's interactions with the other artists of his day, and their art scene. When he breezes into the Royal Academy as a new show is being hung, the monosyllabic greetings he exchanges with each of his fellow artists tells us all we need to know about his relationship with each one. (Especially the clipped way he and rival Constable barely acknowledge each other.)

Famed art critic John Ruskin (Joshua McGuire) is portrayed as a pampered son of privilege with an affected lisp, eager to dazzle with his intellectual analysis of art (which mostly confounds the artists). And while the success of Turner's work forgives his eccentricities in most eyes, all it takes is one unfavorable remark from the new young queen, Victoria, for Turner's star to fall as it becomes fashionable to mock his work.

I love how this movie immerses viewers in the teeming life and culture of its historical period, roughly the late 1820s through around 1850. Carriages clatter across the cobblestones, hawkers cry their wares, rugs are beaten outside in yards, and a new horse-drawn railroad engine belches a plume of white steam across the countryside.

The period details of an artist's life are well-depicted too. At the Royal Academy, most of the artists are still applying paint to their framed canvases even after the show is hung. Paints are mixed from powder and oil, and canvases are stretched by hand. To obtain the perspective he craves for a painting, Turner has himself lashed to a ship's mast, like Odysseus, during a storm at sea.

Leigh's take on Turner's "The Fighting Temeraire."

 Leigh can't resist framing many of the film's outdoor vistas as if they were Turner paintings, to gorgeous effect, as well as recreating onscreen some if Turner's famous pieces (like the towing away of the decommissioned warship, Temeraire, to be broken up). Which sets up the finale, when Turner sits for a photographic portrait and realizes the camera will forever alter the world of painting.

Art has continued into the modern world, of course; it's simply adapted, as everything must. But even by modern standards, Turner's work still seems visionary, captured in Leigh's film in all its robust grandeur.

HEART WORK

Hey kids, the annual Hearts for the Arts show is up now at Artisans Gallery in downtown Santa Cruz.

Once upon a time, this was a gigantic art and social event held at the Santa Cruz Civic for artists and their collectors. The event itself has been downsized these days, like so much else, but its spirit is carried on by the intrepid crew at Artisans.

Here's how it works: dozens of local artists donate original work (not to exceed 10" x 10") in a variety of media. Out of this raw material, the Artisans elves construct a "Wall of Hearts" exhibition to be ogled by the public for the next two weeks.

At the end of that time, February 14, Valentine's Day, each piece will be auctioned off to lucky bidders, with proceeds to benefit the Arts Council of Santa Cruz County, and its education programs, SPECTRA and Mariposa's Art.

 It's an ongoing silent auction, which means the public is invited to come by Artisans during the next two weeks, check out the artwork, and place bids on their favorites.

High bidders will claim their prizes when the auction closes on the 14th—so check back often, to see if you need to up your bid!

The usual wide variety of artwork is up for auction this year. Participating artists include Isobel George, Linda Levy, Claire Lerner, Sandra Cherk, T. Mike Walker, Margo Mullen, and James Aschbacher (that's his Trampoline of Love decorating my margin!), among many others.

The show also includes a rare sculpture from Maggie Renner Hellmann, found art assemblage from Peter Koronakos, jewelry from Lynn Guenther, printmaking from Melissa West and Stacy Frank, and lots of other treasures.

The silent auction runs through February 14. Drop by and bid on your favorite piece!

ALGORITHM & BLUES

The keyboard is always waiting

The popular readers' site, Goodreads, is democracy in action; anybody can use it and everybody's opinion has the same value. It also proves the old adage that you can't please all of the people all of the time. An author learns pretty quick that however much blood, sweat, heart and soul you poured into your literary baby, there are plenty of readers out there for whom it is just not their thing.

And that's okay. The sooner you learn to tune out the babble of conflicting opinions, the sooner you can get back to the keyboard!

Most authors set up a page on Goodreads before their book's official release, when the only people who have read it are the author's mom and a few close, personal friends. So those first reviews are glowing, four or five stars out of five, racking up a 4.5 or even 5.0 "average rating." Then the pub date arrives, and the (dreaded) public starts chiming in.

I try not to obsess over my ratings, rankings, and/or stars. If you get all euphoric over a terrific rating, you feel obliged to get all miserable when your rating falls. So I'm not constantly on my Goodreads page; I'd rather be writing.

But Art Boy has no such qualms. When Alias Hook was released, he was checking my ratings several times a day. And he began to notice something weird. Within about a month, my book started racking up a ton of one-star ratings. Often, the readers who posted them came from someplace where my book was not even available (like Libya, or Saudi Arabia, although books can be ordered online, of course). And in every case, the person had either just joined Goodreads or added their list of ratings that month.

I couldn't be in better company, but still...

But strangest of all: in every case, Alias Hook was included in a list of 20 or so titles, most of them literary classics, each of which had only received a one-star rating. And it was always the same 10-20 titles: To Kill A Mockingbird, 1984, Romeo & Juliet, The Great Gatsby, Animal Farm, Little Women, Great Expectations, Lord Of the Flies, Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and a few others. Company I'd be thrilled to have my book compared to in any other circumstances!

Often, these readers' lists only included 20 books—as if they had been asked to score 20 titles to qualify for something, and there was one list of titles that everybody was using. And then they'd just hastened down the list, ticking off one star for each title to get on with it.

I have no problem with a one-star review. No, really; if a person reads my book and decides it's not for them and says why, that's a legitimate response. The problem here was a sudden outbreak of one-star reviews posted by people who had pretty obviously not read the book. Bogus ratings that were skewing my precious "average rating" to way down below the Mendoza Line.

Help! Get me off this grid!

 At last, I broke down and contacted the social media diva at my publishing house for advice. I didn't expect anyone to purge the dozens of bogus ratings off my Alias Hook page; I'm sure that's contrary to the Tao of Goodreads. But, I asked, could I at least get my book taken off that list?

And here's what we found out: there was no "list," per se. But there was an algorithm (as opposed to "editorial selection," we were told, which could have been adjusted). Somehow, my book had been randomly sorted in with all these classic titles that were presented to incoming Goodreaders to be "rated" before they could move on to the next level of Goodreadership.

Why? How? Forget it, Jake, it's technology. It was like Tron, my poor little book trapped forever in an algorithm, battling to get out. An apt metaphor, I suppose, for the way James Hook is trapped forever in the Neverland, if you want to get all abstract.

The good news is, after another few weeks, the program shifted gears, and my one-star reviews stabilized. The downside is, now, whenever a new one-star review appears on my page (much less often than before), I have to admit I've earned it.

Still, this can be very liberating. As soon as you realize how impossible it is to please everybody, you can give yourself permission to stop trying, and go write your book the way it needs to be written.

ON THE BRINK...

I was recently invited to sum up last year, 2014, in one word. I chose "Beginnings," thinking of the chance I got last year to spread my wings as a fledgling author. But I realize now if I was going to be 100% accurate, I should have said simply "Change."

The one constant in life is change, as some wag or other probably said once. Some things we confidently expect to last forever, and it's always a rude surprise when they don't. The much beloved Capitola Book Cafe closed its doors last year, to the despair of readers everywhere. Ditto Pretty Mama's, after decades as the place to go for discount chic with attitude.

Santa Cruz's favorite free cinema event, the Pacific Rim Film Festival, was unable to produce a 2014 edition. And while the show finally did go on for the critically endangered Shakespeare Santa Cruz, abruptly unmoored from the support of UCSC, the old entity had to reinvent itself, phoenix-like, as Santa Cruz Shakespeare, before presenting a season entirely funded by patrons and sponsors.

2014 was also the year the entire editorial staff at Good Times, my home port for nearly (ulp) 40 years, were unceremoniously shown the door when the entity formerly known as Metro/Santa Cruz Weekly moved in to run the show. So nothing lasts forever.

Meanwhile, I find myself on the brink of more changes in the New Year. Last July, after toiling away on the fringes forever, I had a novel published by a major US book publisher. I enjoyed the thrill of working with a professional editor and PR team at Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press in support of Alias Hook; I had a fabulous book event at Bookshop Santa Cruz, embarked on an extensive book blog tour, and launched Alias Hook pages on Facebook and Pinterest.

The question is, now what?

Most writers lucky enough to get a novel published have a couple of spares waiting in the wings. I certainly do! And when I showed my favorite of the lot, another story in the fractured fairy tale line, to the agent who took me on last spring, she loved it! But my editor at TDB was not so enthused, so even though I did an extensive rewrite, that book (let's call it Book B) was put back on hold indefinitely.

Another book? I do have a few ideas...

My editor was interested in a sequel to Alias Hook, however. And while I've always considered that book a stand-alone—poor James and Stella have been through enough: I had no plans to drag them through any more complications—an idea did occur to me for approaching the Neverland from a completely new perspective.

After all, my Neverland already exists fully-fledged in the percolating hothouse of my brain, so the world-building has already been done.

All I had to do was think of a plot, which, okay, is usually my Achilles Heel. (Plot? You mean the characters can't just sit around lobbing witty remarks at each other?) But just like a grown-up author, I wrote up an 8-page plot outline for the sequel (let's call it Book C) and submitted it as a proposal to my editor.

He liked it enough to make an offer. But my agent didn't want to close a deal on Book C if it meant Book B would never see the light of print. She wanted to shop both books elsewhere. So throughout December, in addition to year-end movie deadlines and the holidays, I was jamming away at revising Book B.

The problem was, even though I finally got the approval of my beta reader (okay, it was Art Boy), and even though my agent loved the rest of the book, she and her minions had reservations about the opening. They were afraid that the early scenes/pages/chapters didn't get to the good stuff fast enough. And of course, every time you add or subtract anything in the front of a book, you have to comb through the rest of the book to make sure it all adds up. In one month, I revised the entire manuscript three times.

After so many revisions, the only solution is a brain transplant.

But my agent and I finally had to agree to disagree. Outside of a brain transplant for new ideas, there wasn't anything else I felt I could do to it. Lucky for me, we opted for something a bit less drastic—we decided to send out the most recent revision to an editor my agent had mentioned the book to before the holidays, who was evidently dying to read it. At the very least, we thought we might get some valuable insight before I plunged into yet another rewrite.

But, surprise! The editor loves it.

Understand that this in no way constitutes an offer on Book B, much less a sale. The editor has to discuss it with her team at her publishing house, and it's not enough if they simply love it as much as she does. She has to convince them it's a book they can market, or else they have to convince her that it's not. So the fat lady hasn't sung quite yet.

But at least two people in the NY publishing world love my little book! Now we just have to wait and see what happens next. Will Book B make the cut? Will this be the beginning of a beautiful new professional friendship? And what about Book C?

Stay tuned...


(Top: painting by Heinrich Vogel, 1902.)

MORE DUELING HOOKS

Hey kids, what time is it? Ten points to Gryffindor if you said it's time for Captain Hook!

Sure, James M Barrie's enduring pirate captain may be 110 years old (or more, if you subscribe to my version of the character in Alias Hook, where he's been frozen in time—at age 43—since 1724). But the time has never been more right for the witty, sardonic old rogue, who's enjoying something of a mini-Renaissance right this minute.

Over on TV's Once Upon A Time, we have the handsome young leather-clad incarnation of the character played for a couple of seasons now by Colin O'Donoghue. It seems like this Captain Hook (aka Killian Jones) was brought in at the beginning of the second season chiefly as a villainous adversary to Robert Carlyle's Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold character.

But viewer response to the sexy Irishman was so positive, this Hook has since been promoted to the role of principal love interest to the show's nominal heroine, Emma Swan. But Emma's love interests have an unfortunate way of ending up dead—remember the handsome sheriff who had his traitor's heart squished (literally) by the evil queen? Remember Pinocchio?—which may be why Emma's been so standoffish.

Still, last night, with calamity looming (calamity is always looming in this show), Killian/Hook got another chance to plant a big smooch on Emma. That gurgling sound you may have heard was millions of women all over America melting over their remotes.

Meanwhile, Hook is coming back to the big screen in a big way in next summer's Pan. The movie won't be out for seven more months, but official studio portraits of the main characters were released this week.

No doubt inspired by the popularity of the OUaT character, the producers went with a younger vibe for their Hook, as played by Garrett Hedlund. In what purports to be an origin story of Peter Pan,  the boy Peter is whisked off to the Neverland, where he falls in with the notorious pirate, Blackbeard—one of whose crewmembers is the youthful James Hook. Apparently, the two of them team up to save Neverland from their lunatic boss. (Played by Hugh Jackman, from whom I'm expecting plenty of  scenery-chomping brio!)

I'm not sure what time period—if any—the movie is meant to be set in. That flintlock Hedlund is grasping looks appropriate to the Blackbeard era, although not so his clothing or his haircut. Doesn't he seem a tad neatly coifed for a pirate?

As I mentioned in a previous post, J. M. Barrie says in his novel, Peter And Wendy, that James Hook once sailed with Blackbeard, so I suppose the storyline isn't all that far-fetched. It's Hook becoming allies with that infernal boy I may not be able to swallow; but I suppose it's all in the telling.

And then, this Thursday (Dec 4), batten down the hatches for Peter Pan Live, an in-studio production of the venerable stage musical to be broadcast live to a TV screen near you.  And speaking of venerable, the intrepid Christopher Walken—iconoclast that he is—is going against the youth-vibe trend to bring seasoned menace to the role of Captain Hook.

A veteran hoofer from way back (remember him tap-dancing on the bar in Pennies From Heaven?), Walken also promises to bring a bit of the ol' soft-shoe to the deck of Hook's ship. (It's a musical, remember?)

I can't say that any of these gentlemen are exactly my vision of James Hook. But I'll be cheering them all on, thrilled that the good captain continues to, er, carve out a place for himself in popular culture!