List #56: An Alphabet for December -- I

[An incomplete guide to some of the things I wrecked this year.]

"I" Is for ... The Infatuations

(Rec. #384)

What: A woman gets very involved in the lives of two regularly-observed strangers ... after one of them is killed.

Opening lines: "The last time I saw Miguel Desvern or Deverne was also the last time that his wife, Luisa, saw him, which seemed strange, perhaps unfair, given that she was his wife, while I, on the other hand, was a person he had never met, a woman with whom he had never exchanged so much as a single word."

Representative quotes: See Quote from a Fictional Character #15 and Quote from a Fictional Character #70.

How to get it: Buyable, borrowable, Kindle-able. Like much of Javier Marías's work, it has also been translated from the original Spanish into 42 different languages.

Connection to previous Wreckage: The Infatuations showed up on List #35: A Few of the Best Books I Read in 2013.

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List #56: An Alphabet for December -- H

[An incomplete guide to some of the things I wrecked this year.]

"H" Is for ... High Maintenance

(Rec. #374)

What: This web series follows an unnamed pot dealer "bike messenger" and his clients. Each 5-to-10-minute episode is like a little, perfect short story.

Comparable to: I mean short stories in the vein of Daphne Kalotay. As in, swap out New York for Boston and you've basically got Kalotay's Calamity and Other Stories (Rec. #227).

Representative quote: "I gotta say, originally I was kind of upset that you guys had a kid 'cause he was kind of screwing up my income stream, but he's really cute!"


How to watch it:

First of all, go to Vimeo.

Second, the episode titles are not the client names. The episodes can be a little tricky to track, so here are the key words/phrases that describe each one (while still mainly avoiding spoilers). I've starred my favorites.

"Stevie" --- Personal assistant
"Heidi" --- Moocher
"Jamie" --- Mouse
***"Olivia" --- Assholes
***"Helen" --- Lonely
"Trixie" --- Airbnb couple
"Dinah" --- couple + friend
"Jonathan" --- Hannibal Buress
"Elijah" --- Family dinner
***"Brad Pitts" --- Bird watching
***"Qasim" --- Polyphasic sleep
***"Matilda" --- Niece
***"Rachel" --- Dan Stevens


Third, HBO has picked this up. Because of course it has.

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List #56: An Alphabet for December -- G

[An incomplete guide to some of the things I wrecked this year.]

"G" Is for ... God Help the Girl

(Streaming Suggestion of the Week #15)

Stream what: Eve, James, and Cassie form a band.

Stream why: The songs are Belle & Sebastian in their ideal context, the British/Scottish humor quirks up throughout, the characterization is deeper than it has to be, and the ending is great. Plus, I love this.

Stream where: Free with Amazon Prime.


Read more: Rec. #361

Also: List #47

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List #56: An Alphabet for December -- F

[An incomplete guide to some of the things I wrecked this year.]

"F" Is for ... Family Tree

(Rec. #370)

What: Tom Chadwick (as played by the ridiculously likable Chris O'Dowd) is a bit lost --- he's lost his job, his girlfriend, and [somewhat less immediately] his great-aunt Victoria. The first two don't leave him with much, but the late great-aunt leaves him a Box of Stuff.

An old photo in the Box of Stuff starts Tom on his quest to explore his family's history. Across 8 episodes, this takes him to princes and theatres and the Olympics and a farm and, strangest of all, California.

Comparable to: The show is from Christopher Guest, so it's, you know, a lot like Christopher Guest stuff.

Representative dialogue:
"My bravery, my kind of innate courage ..."
"What courage and innate bravery?"
"I was the first out of our group to wear skinny jeans."

How to get it: Streams for free with Amazon Prime.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Family Tree was part of List #49: A Few of the Best First Seasons of TV I Watched in 2014.

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List #56: An Alphabet for December -- E

[An incomplete guide to some of the things I wrecked this year.]

"E" Is for ... Elster, Madeleine

(Quote from a Fictional Character #62)

"Only one is a wanderer; two together are always going somewhere."

--- Madeleine Elster,

Vertigo, 1958

[A] [B] [C] [D] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W]

List #56: An Alphabet for December -- D

[An incomplete guide to some of the things I wrecked this year.]

"D" Is for ... Death of a Peer

(Rec. #381)

What: Ngaio Marsh was a British New Zealander who directed Shakespeare and wrote mystery novels. I love her books very much, and this is my favorite.

Following the death of her parents, quiet and watchful Roberta Grey travels halfway around the world to live with some charming, down-on-their-luck aristos. Then the murder happens.

Representative quote: "It was in a sort of trance that Roberta offered to spend the rest of an endless night in an unknown house with the apparently insane widow of a murdered peer."

Connections to previous Wreckage: For other Marsh novels, see List #27, in which I wish Ngaio Marsh a happy birthday.

Death of a Peer was also the debut entry of my occasionally recurring feature First Sign of Murder (FSoM #1).

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List #56: An Alphabet for December -- C

[An incomplete guide to some of the things I wrecked this year.]

"C" Is for ... Cunningham, Bill

(Streaming Suggestion of the Week #10)

Stream what: This engaging documentary profiles the legendary and much beloved Bill Cunningham, a longtime street fashion photographer for the New York Times.

Stream why: Charming old guy! Very sweet and charming old guy! Very sweet and charming old guy riding around New York City on a bike!

Stream where: Netflix


For more info: Rec. #223

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List #56: An Alphabet for December -- B

[An incomplete guide to some of the things I wrecked this year.]

"B" Is for ... Blandings

(Rec. #379)

What: Blandings adapts a set of connected P.G. Wodehouse stories for television, much as Jeeves & Wooster did in the early '90s (what ho!).

This series plays fast and loose with plots, but makes a solid go of capturing Wodehouse's steady parade of crispy dialogue.

Evidence (representative dialogue):

Exhibit A: "Do you bash the shuttlecock from the feathered end?"

Exhibit B: "Clarence, that doesn't even qualify as a lie. That's just noise leaking out of your face."

Exhibit C:
"I don't quite catch your drift."
"Then I shall continue snowing."

Connections to previous Wreckage: I adore Wodehouse's writing. See List #43 for more.

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List #56: An Alphabet for December -- A

[An incomplete guide to some of the things I wrecked this year.]

"A" Is for ... Aldarisio, Alfredo

(Quote from a Fictional Character #80)

"I'm beating at happiness. I've beaten it into submission and bottled it for convenience."

--- Alfredo Aldarisio, 

Pushing Daisies, 2008

(Rec. #233)

(List #53)

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Friday Flashback: Rec. #136: Jill the Reckless

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: P.G. Wodehouse is, of course, best known for his Jeeves and Wooster stories. There are also the Blandings Castle stories, and the Psmith stories, and the Monty Bodkin stories, and the Earl of Ickenham stories, and several stand-alone stories about various young men who bumble along being good sports and eventually win the day. 

Here, finally, we have a young woman who gets to bumble along being a good sport and eventually win the day. It starts when she's arrested for getting into a fight over a parrot, and it only gets better from there.

Comparable to: It's P.G. Wodehouse. That is basically its own genre.

Representative quote: "Jill reached the scene of the battle, and, stopping, eyed Henry with a baleful glare. We, who have seen Henry in his calmer moments and know him for the good fellow he was, are aware that he was more sinned against than sinning. If there is any spirit of justice in us, we are pro-Henry."

You might not like it if: You are inexplicably not pro-Henry. Or maybe you find it impossible to read a Wodehouse book that does not feature Reginald Jeeves.

How to get it: Overlook Press does it again with a great edition (see above).

Connection to previous Wreckage: See a wide spectrum of Wodehouse with List #43: Happy Birthday, P.G. Wodehouse.

[Originally posted 5/29/11.]

Quote from a Fictional Character #83

"Most people nowadays are run by fear. Fear of what they eat, fear of what they drink, fear of their jobs, their future, fear of their health. They're scared to save money, and they're scared to spend it. You know what his pet aversion is? The people who commercialize on fear, you know they scare you to death so they can sell you something you don't need."

--- Alice Sycamore,

You Can't Take It With You, 1938

(Rec. #327)

(List #42)

Friday Flashback: Rec. #271: Tamara Drewe

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Tamara Drewe is Posy Simmonds's modernized, satirical take on Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd --- she gets her characters into a rural setting via a writer's retreat. Her story started as a weekly comic serial in The Guardian before becoming an award-winning graphic novel.

Opening lines:
"Assholes!"
"Oh come on, Glen, they're just bored ... holidays've gone on too long ... just mindless."
"But that's what I object to! I mean if they threw stuff with a purpose ... like they see us and think: hey, writers! Let's egg the self-regarding sacks of shit."
"Maybe they did."

You might not like it if: Satire! Struggling writers! The British countryside! Adultery! Rock star ex-fiances! Mid-life ennui! Stalkers! Plotting! Sheep! What's not to like?

How to get it: Buy it or borrow it. The paperback edition is a super good deal right now on Amazon.

Connections to previous Wreckage: The graphic novel was made into a movie in 2010. I haven't seen it, but Tamsin Greig is in it, so how bad could it be? We love Tamsin Greig! See Black Books (Rec. #68), Green Wing (Rec. #110), and The Half (Rec. #178) for evidence of why she's great.

[Originally posted 1/22/13.]

Rec. #390: Now You See Me

What: The thing, though, is that magicians doing a heist is such a dumb-good idea. Like, why wasn't it already a cliche before Now You See Me came out? Why wasn't the reaction, "Oh god, not another robbing-a-bank-with-magic movie"?

Plus, we've got the not-inconsiderable charms of Isla Fisher, Jesse Eisenberg, Melanie Laurent, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Common.

Representative quote: "First rule of magic: always be the smartest person in the room."

You might not like it if: Yes, the characters are pretty 2D. That is a price I am willing to pay for something that zips along like this without aliens, superheroes, or casual murder.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Mentioned as part of List #50.

Also, List #28 is all about Cons, Capers, and Heists on Screen.

Quote from a Fictional Character #82

"She'd made a fool of herself -- she knew it even if he didn't -- and it was better to put it out of her thoughts lest she conclude again that reality was a world she dared not inhabit."

--- Melissa Aubrey,

Uncertain Voyage, Dorothy Gilman, 1967

(Rec. #167)

Friday Flashback: Rec. #209 (abbrev.): Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: French historical (melo)drama, two films, rural Provence, post-WWI, water, mountains, hunchback, property, water, inheritance, neighbors, water, carnations, poacher, water, altercations, rabbit breeding, water, schemes, elusive springs, eyewitness, dynamite, water, trickery, revenge

Representative quote (Jean de Florette): "What kind of man is he?" "He's a typical city-hunchback type."

Representative quote (Manon of the Spring): "Destiny doesn't exist. Only good-for-nothings talk about destiny."

[Originally posted 11/10/11.]

Rec. #389: Practical Magic

What: Alice Hoffman's novel Practical Magic is a beautifully written, languidly realistic series of character mappings ... that also happens to deploy magical realism.

Opening lines: "For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in town."

Representative quote: "Always keep mint on your windowsill in August, to ensure that buzzing flies will stay outside, where they belong. Don't think the summer is over, even when roses droop and turn brown and the stars shift position in the sky. Never presume August is a safe or reliable time of the year."

You might not like if it: Don't get me started on the misguided movie adaptation.

Connection to previous Wreckage: Hoffman's Local Girls was Rec. #256.

Streaming Suggestion of the Week #21: Laura

Stream what: A police detective falls in love with a murder victim.

Stream why: Laura is arguably the best film of the noir era. It's certainly my favorite.

Stream where: Netflix, Amazon Prime


Read more: Rec. #193, Quote from a Fictional Character #49

Friday Flashback: Rec. #294: Further Tales of the City

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: As the title implies, this third novel takes us even further into the lives of the residents of 28 Barbary Lane, San Francisco. This time, though, author Armistead Maupin wanders farther afield, with the characters making forays out of Guyana with gay Cuban refugees, into Golden Gate Park to find Truth, on the run to Alaska, and over to the National Gay Rodeo just for kicks.

There are also charismatic psychopaths, society columnists, and a briefly imprisoned newscaster called Bambi. Not to mention a big, big Jonestown "what if."

Opening lines: "There were outlanders, of course, who continued to insist that San Francisco was a city without seasons, but Mrs. Madrigal paid no heed to them."

How to get it: Buyable, borrowable, Kindle-able.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Start with Tales of the City (Rec. #67) and More Tales of the City (Rec. #211). And enjoy the Laura-Linney-starring miniseries adaptation along the way (Personal Wreck #2).

[Originally posted 5/30/13.]

Rec. #388: Flickchart

What: The website Flickchart prompts you to rank movies against each other, giving you the chance to finally build out your own personal "Best Movies of All Time" list.

The ranking itself is addictively enjoyable, and once you've got a good list going, you can also slice and dice the data with all kinds of charts.

Nothing like myopically obsessing over your own tastes to keep you occupied for hours. Ahem.

How to get it: Start at http://www.flickchart.com/.

Quote from a Fictional Character #81

"Maybe I'll just sit here and bleed at you."

--- Brendan Frye,

Brick, 2005

(Rec. #62)