mb palaver

RandomPalaver: Merry Christmas 2008!

I wish I could say that's the last time I saw that look on my brother's face.

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

BookPalaver: The Secret Scripture

A couple of years ago I raved about the novel A Long, Long Way by the extraordinary Irish author Sebastian Barry. His latest book, The Secret Scripture, would also be an excellent gift for fiction lovers on your Christmas list. The story alternates between the memoirs of Roseanne McNulty, 100 years old and living in a mental asylum in the west of Ireland, and of the doctor who treats her. This is a serious Irish novel, so it should come as no surprise that the story Roseanne tells is tragic and, at times, profoundly sad. At one point she recounts an event that her father unwittingly precipitated that is so horrible I thought I don't know how a human being could possibly go on living after that. I turned the page, and it got worse. Merry Christmas!

But really, it's an engaging and beautifully told story. It deals with history, and the unreliability of memory. It would be a good choice for book clubs, because it's the kind of book you want to mull over with someone the moment you finish it. (Can you mull with someone, or is it a solitary act?) It's in the Politics and Prose holiday newsletter, which means members can buy it for 20% off through the end of the year.

ShoppingPalaver: Free Overnight Shipping on Shoes and More

If you have to send something last minute to arrive by Christmas and don't want to pay last minute shipping rates, you might want to check out endless.com and zappos.com. Both offer free shipping (both ways, in the event of a return).  The official policy at endless, an amazon.com company, is free overnight shipping.  Zappos doesn't promise that it's overnight, but whenever I've ordered from them they have sent it overnight.  The catch is that both sites sell mostly shoes, not a big Christmas wish list item.  But endless also sells slippers, purses, travel bags, luggage tags, and other small accessories, and Zappos now also sells clothing and accessories.

One advantage of endless is that if you are an amazon customer you can use your amazon password and stored information, making the purchase as quick as the delivery.  I've often found Zappos' prices for shoes to be about $5 more than they charge at, say, Nordstrom, so it's a bit of a wash if you're not in a hurry, but if you need it overnight that $5 is a bargain.

Zappos guarantees delivery by Christmas if you order by 1:00 pm on Tuesday December 23.  Endless gives you to 5:15 pm on the 23rd.  These are policies even the white rabbit can appreciate.

MusicPalaver: Shine a Light for Keith's Birthday

Today was Keith Richards' 65th birthday.  (This is one of those pieces of information that takes up space in my brain where an understanding of global warming should be.)  I'll mark the occasion by urging you to go out and buy Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stones documentary, "Shine a Light," for any Stones fans on your holiday gift list.  The film shows a private benefit concert celebrating Bill Clinton's 60th birthday at the Beacon Theatre in New York, interspersed with some backstage footage and television clips from the '60s.

After I saw this at the Uptown Theater last spring I was bursting with thoughts I wanted to post, but it only remained in theaters another five minutes, so I abandoned it.  Here's what I remember: 

• The clip of Mick being interviewed in the '60s on a Granada television show by a group of very serious-looking clerics with titles like the Archbishop of Canterbury.
• Keith singing a gorgeous version of "You Got the Silver" and then, instead of letting the moment speak for itself, saying "Cool, huh?" (I think Charlie then did an incredulous double-take, though it's hard to say since he always looks like he's doing an incredulous double-take.)
• Mick's duet with Jack White on "Loving Cup" was amazing; his duet with Christina Aguilera on "Live With Me" was kinda icky.
• Ron Wood's big expensive-looking wristwatch; I mean, does he have somewhere he has to be?
• Are those fishing lures hanging from Keith's hair?
• I am in love with Bernard the back-up singer.
• Though at the beginning there are scenes of the Clintons meeting the Stones (including Hillary's mother getting a smooch from Keith), we mercifully never see the former President doing the white man's overbite in the balcony.
• I forgot about the song "She Was Hot."  What other songs have I forgotten?  I should get a new turntable.
• Keith Richards still has a nice smile.

Last week Dubliner gave me the DVD of the movie.  I just watched Keith singing "You Got the Silver." I have to admit it wasn't as moving on my substandard TV as it was on the Uptown's big screen.  You might want to add an HDTV to the package if you give this as a gift.  (Hear that Dubliner?)

By the way, getting back to Keith, did you notice back in March I managed to post a photo that showed both Rufus Sewell and Keith Richards?

RandomPalaver: Shipping, MacGyver style

One of the unpleasant chores of last-minute holiday errands is standing in line at the post office.  If you've got a printer, a scale, and packing material, you don't have to.  On usps.com, you can pay for and print a shipping label, tape it to the box, and leave the package for the mail carrier.  I wish I'd figured this out ages ago.  Hang onto a couple of amazon boxes or keep a roll of brown paper in the house, and some packing tape, and you're good to go.

The only problem I've had with this is when I used Internet Explorer with the pop-up blocker activated and the shipping label would not pop up.  I switched to Firefox and had no problems. Alternatively, you might just need to disable pop-up blockers.  Evidently usps.com was having some technical problems last week due to heavy volume.  They sent me an email suggesting that customers having problems with the site can use Endicia.com and Stamps.com for their online shipping needs.  I used usps.com tonight with no problems (I hope!).

If you must go to the post office, and you live in northwest DC, keep in mind that the Friendship station at Wisconsin and Upton has long hours, including being open on Saturdays and Sundays year-round.  You can locate a post office and check hours here.  The main post office across from Union Station has even longer hours, but if you're arriving by car parking can be a hassle there.

Photo courtesy of Yukon Archives. Anton Vogee fonds, #259.  Caption: Line in front of post office [A line up of miners waiting to enter the post office on Pearl Street.]

MusicPalaver: White Christmas, Drifters Style

Here's my annual musical Christmas card to my father.  I wish I had an animation of his reaction when a friend sent this to him a few years ago.  Merry Christmas Dad!

tvPalaver: Mad About Mad Men

I came late to Mad Men.  When I saw the commercials for it a year and a half ago or so I thought it looked exploitative.  It's set in the advertising world of Madison Avenue in the early 1960s, and the promos made me think it celebrated a culture where men were men and women knew their place.  Fortunately, partway through the second season (this past summer) friends encouraged me to give it a try. I did, and I was hooked.

Far from celebrating sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, and alcoholism, it provides a nuanced, realistic take on these things, and life in general in the early 60s.  And tells great stories.  The writing and acting are first rate.  I love the props.  In one scene Betty (above) was reading to her daughter from a book that was so familiar to me from forty years ago that I could remember what it smelled like and what it felt like in my hands (I think our Aunt Kathleen gave it to us as a hand-me-down from her children).  I love the theme song, particularly when the percussion comes in behind animated Don's shoulder.  I've actually rewound and watched the opening again.  Repeatedly.  I love Don's stiff suaveness.  I love Pete's weaseliness, and his stilted attempts at snappy phrases.   ("A thing like that.")

In looks, Betty reminds me of a cross between Laura Petrie, Pam from "The Office" (in the way she talks), Grace Kelly, and my mother, though I'm happy to say my mother, in addition to being beautiful, was and is a warm and caring mother (Betty, not so much, despite the bedtime reading scene).  I love the fact when they turn the TV off the screen goes down to a pinpoint of light.  (As kids we used to race to be the first to the TV to put our index finger on the dot as it disappeared.)  I love Joan's walk.  I love the way the women are all freaked out by the new divorcee in the neighborhood.  I love the typewriter covers.  I love the depictions of things we did then that seemed normal but now seem insane, such as when Betty's son sails over the front car seat to get to the glove compartment, and when her daughter Sally appears in the kitchen wearing a "this is not a toy" dry cleaning bag over her head and Betty's only concern is whether Sally had thrown Betty's dry cleaning on the floor.  As a result of the extraordinary consumption of hard liquor that goes on in the offices of Sterling Cooper in each episode, I confess to at least once giving in and pouring myself a Scotch.  I wonder if Lucky Strike has had an unexpected increase in revenue.  I find Peggy to be an enigma.

I could go on and on.  Obviously.  If you missed it the first time around, Season 1 is available on four DVDs from Netflix. For anyone on your holiday gift list, Amazon's got the set for $27.49 right now.  If you watch it, and are able to figure out what the deal is with Peggy, please fill me in.

FoodPalaver: Bruno's of Jersey City Lives On in Minty, Chocolatey Dessert

If you're hosting any holiday dinners and would like to include a no-effort dessert, you might want to try what my parents served up one night over Thanksgiving weekend:  a bowl of Edy's peppermint ice cream with chocolate sauce.  It was a revelation, and not just because the peppermint and chocolate made such a great combination.  My parents are known to have a scoop of ice cream at night from time to time, but the chocolate sauce seemed to be a new twist.  It turned out it wasn't so new to them.  They spotted the limited edition candy cane-inspired ice cream at Kroger in Middletown, Ohio, and reminisced about the mint ice cream with chocolate sauce served at Bruno's, an Italian restaurant in Jersey City they went to many decades ago.

I found a photo of Bruno's from back in the day via Google Book Search.  Sadly,  I can't post it, but you can view it here.  It's from one of those "Images of America" books that includes old photos and history of towns and neighborhoods, this one called Jersey City 1940-1960:  The Dan McNulty Collection.  For anyone interested (you know who you are), you can read a fair amount of it and view a lot of photos at the Google Book Search link.  The book says that "Bruno's was one of the most popular and fanciest Italian restaurants in town until it closed in the 1970s."  According to a September 25, 1977 New York Times article, Bruno's was later turned into a restaurant operated by Patrick House, a drug rehabilitation and alcohol treatment program.  The article describes the former Bruno's as "a Jersey City landmark on Summit Avenue that contained a private room where Mayor Frank Hague and his successor and nephew, Mayor Frank Hague Eggers, dined and held conferences."  The Times ran a review of the new Bruno's on October 9, 1977, which included this historical information:

Bruno Valeo began his career by making spaghetti upstairs over a Jersey City tavern called Hillman and Rountree.  The place -- it was on Hudson Boulevard -- became a hit with the political crowd, so much so that Bruno was able to open his own establishment, Bruno's, on Mother's Day in 1946.

In 1972, with most of the old crowd dead or moved away, Bruno's shut its doors, apparently for good, and Mr. Valeo retired.  Then, just last year at this time, Bruno's reopened, stirring up the ghosts of scores of long-forgotten ward healers and trying to bring back the aura of a city that used to be.

The new owners were -- and are -- the Hudson County Drug and Alcohol Program, better known as Patrick House. The restaurant was conceived as a money-making venture, and not as a place for addicts to work.  It is not the old Bruno's, or [sic] course, but it is not bad.

I don't know what, if anything, is at 161 Summit Avenue now, but Bruno's lives on in dessert and memories in Middletown, Ohio.

BookPalaver: Holiday Books (with Optional Pizza)

If you've got books on your holiday shopping list, or need to buy Christmas cards, you can get 20% off most everything in the store at the Politics and Prose holiday member sale this weekend, December 5-7. An annual membership costs $20 (it's $50 for three years), and in addition to three member sales a year includes 20% off all books mentioned in the events calendar for that month and 20% off books on the P&P hardcover fiction and nonfiction bestseller lists.  You can pick up some gift ideas from their holiday newsletter, and most titles in it are 20% off for members through the end of the year.  For more book ideas, check out The New York Times for their 2008 lists of 100 Notable Books, 10 Best Books, and Notable Children's Books of 2008.

If you make it up to Politics and Prose, you can grab a pizza, a beer, and a paddle at Comet Ping Pong just up the block.  Here's an excerpt from Tom's review:

My vote for the most entertaining pizza parlor in the city goes to this spinoff of (and neighbor to) Buck's Fishing & Camping in upper Northwest Washington, which fuses its name from an old liquor store sign and a table tennis theme. Inside is a maze of green tables painted to look like Ping-Pong surfaces; Comet's white globes could pass for giant Ping-Pong balls. And way in the back, past the igloo-shaped pizza oven, await a jukebox and actual Ping-Pong tables for playing between sips of beer and bites of pizza. . . . . But the pies are what drive me here, particularly those topped with crunchy greens, fresh ricotta and black olives; mushrooms, gouda, bacon and soft onions (a.k.a. "The Smoky"); or, this being the mid-Atlantic, soft-shell crabs, leeks and fresh thyme. Whatever your pick, the base is thin, crisp, a little chewy and, like all good crusts, good enough to eat on its own.

Politics and Prose
5015 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20008
(202) 364-1919
(800) 722-0790

Comet Ping Pong
5037 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington DC 20008
(202) 364-0404