End of winter photos

Pictures from the holiday season...

First light Colorado

Yellow dusk

Peter Piper plucked a pepper and placed it in the powder.

Snow Mermaid

silver crescent moon

Fire truck a glow

Blue bears vs, Santa's train

The little reader

The fashionista

Now I sleep

Miki has recently read The Handmaid's Tale and watched the series. Now the discussion (Warning: Spoiler alert!).

Pete: You’ve recently read The Handmaid’s Tale and watched the recent television series. Which one did you like better?

Miki: I thoroughly enjoyed both. One of the differences is that the television series leaves things open for a sequel. I am very much looking forward to that.

Pete: Do you think the plot is plausible, that fertile young women could be held against their will, held in order to provide babies in a future time when conception is quite difficult due to environmental and political factors? 

Miki: Some aspects of this are beginning to come true, so yes.

Pete: I concur. After the last presidential election I think anything is possible. I’ve also read where male fertility is at an all time low. Maybe there’s another story out there as well. 

Pete: What do you think is the most compelling part of the book? 

Miki: The companionship between the women, the sisterhood despite difficult times.

Pete: How about the television show? 

Miki: When the Handmaid has to hand over her baby just after delivery. Also, when they made the character Ofglen watch as her girlfriend was hanged. Another scene I loved is when the Elizabeth Moss character is walking back home with the Handmaid’s after defiantly refusing to maim one of their own. It reminded me of Elizabeth Moss’s famous scene as Peggy in Madmen. All she does is carry her stuff down the hall to her new office, but it’s completely badass. One more scene of note is when Elizabeth Moss is under the covers with Luke and they’re talking about her new pregnancy, her hopes and dreams for the new baby. Very good writing.  

Pete: I was really touched by the final scene between Moira and Luke. Moira seemed to have some problem with Luke near the beginning, yet he still had her on his list of family when she made it to the refugee shelter. Their embrace was touching. 

Pete: What did you think of the performances in the television show?

Miki: Elizabeth Moss was spot on as Offred, as were Samira Wiley as Moira, Alexis Bledel (Rory from the Gilmore Girls!) as Ofglen, O.T. Fagbenle as Luke, and Max Minghella as Nick. The most surprising characters were Joseph Fiennes as the Commander and Yvonne Strahovski as his wife. In the book they’re described as older and arthritic, but in the television series they are just a little bit older than the rest of the cast and as physically attractive. 

Pete: Did you have any sympathy for the Commander and his wife?

Miki: In the book, yes, but in the television series, no. They come off as cruel and manipulative. 

Pete: Do you feel like they may have any regrets about the society they helped to create? I thought they may have but are in too deep to go back. They’d be exiled, imprisoned, or killed.

Miki: In the book, I didn’t get much of an impression about any of that, but in the show, I really felt like Serena Joy had regrets. Pete, do you think you will read The Handmaid's Tale?

Pete: After having seen the original film version and this television series, I’m not sure I could go through it again. That said, I never thought I’d be interested in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, but recently picked it up on a whim and absolutely loved it. It’s in my top ten for sure. So I never say never when it comes to books.

The movie classic High Noon has quite a backstory. Read this review:

High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic by Glenn Frankel

High Noon is one of my favorite western-themed movies along with The Searchers and both versions of True Grit. What I didn't know about High Noon was that many of its principle developers -- producer, actors, screenwriter, etc...-- were involved either directly or indirectly in the Hollywood blacklist scare of the 1950's. Many concerned citizens and lawmakers alike had great fear of communist influence in American industry and culture, and came down brutally hard on Hollywood in particular. If you had any personal history with the Communist party or were even left-leaning, your career was in great jeopardy. There were even whispers of new concentration camps being developed if the scourge of communism could not be eliminated. Basically, you lived in a free country -- but perhaps not quite as free as you once thought. 

Many of the great Hollywood legends appear in this book, from Gary Cooper to John Wayne to Bogie & Bacall to the powerful studio heads and two future Presidents of the United States. Some individuals distinguished themselves with great courage while others caved under intense pressure and named their friends and associates to government investigators. Under all of that suspicion, however, High Noon was made and became a Hollywood classic, mirrored the times in many ways. It's been nearly seventy years later and yet the film still resonates. It's timeless. It's High Noon.

Early Halloween arts and crafts...

Dark Houses series: The Bride, the Groom, and the Milkman

Dark Houses series: Halloween

Book review: Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan plus much more...

Part mystery, part love letter to books, booksellers, and book lovers alike (and even includes a shout out to the gang back in receiving), Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is a very clever mystery about a suicide, a triple murder, and the lone survivor who has to put all the pieces together. The novel is set, I believe, in early 1990's Denver, when the baseball stadium was being built and the lower-downtown area was just beginning its long transformation from urban blight to imposing glass edifices and impossible to park. The Bright Ideas Bookstore was a place to escape the cold and lose yourself in three stories of books, a coffee shop, and a newsstand. 

I came onto the scene in 2001, and by mid-year was working for an eerily similar bookstore in Denver. We didn't stay open until midnight back then, but I do recall closing on weekends at 11:00 pm, the bars in full swing and many a colorful character wandering (sometimes staggering) in for a last look at the books or a quick trip to the restroom (perhaps to vomit). I remember having my lunch at the 16th and Wynkoop intersection late in the summer. Today, hundreds and hundreds of people and vehicles pass by in a hurry going this way and that. But back then on that day there was not another soul in sight, until...a very old man came upon me violently swing his cane. I was sure he was going to hit me with it, but he eventually calmed down and we had lunch together. It was nice. I only saw him one more time after that, still swinging the cane.

But getting back to the book. At the onset of the story, star bookseller Lydia discovers one of her regulars, Joey, hanging by his neck on the third floor of the bookstore (that's right, the third floor). Based upon my lower-downtown experience of those years past, I don't find that scenario implausible at all. The hanged man leaves a clue on his person that connects Lydia to a dark incident in her past. So begins a humble bookseller's fascinating journey through gritty downtown Denver and into the snowy mountains as she attempts to solve the riddle of a suicide and the identity of a murderer. 

Longtime Denver folks will recognize the many so accurately described landmarks in the novel including the Wazee Supper Club, the 16th Street mall, a certain independent bookstore, Capitol Hill, Colfax, the dive bars, the slushy alleys. Very longtime Denver folks and booksellers may even recognize themselves. Who could guess a book about suicide and homicide could be such fun to read? 

Dark Houses series

Dark House 1

Dark House 2