"Fifty Shades Of Christian....errrr....Grey!"

E.L. James wrote "Fifty Shades of Grey" to be the grown-up version of Edward and Bella's romance from the Young Adult series, "Twilight."  Remember Stefanie Meyer's books featuring Edward, the vampire, and his teenage bride, Bella, who gives birth to a half human/half vampire child?  Well, that story is actually much more likely to happen in real life than the things that happen in "Fifty Shades of Grey." This "Erotic Romance Novel" features 27 year-old billionaire CEO, Christian Grey, and 22 year-old college student, Anastasia Steele, who is a virgin until he introduces her not only to sex but to his wonderful world of S&M. 

Christian and Ana meet when she interviews him for her college newspaper.  Almost immediately, they realize they can't keep their hands off each other, and although she says she'd be perfectly satisfied with what he calls "vanilla sex," he has some serious control issues wherein she can't touch him without his permission, and he wants them to become involved in a Dominant/Submissive relationship where she must sign a contract agreeing to all his demands. Throughout the entire book, she still isn't sure if she wants to sign this contract which contains clauses such as:  "The Submissive will keep herself clean and shaved and/or waxed at all times," and "The Submissive will not drink to excess, smoke, take recreational drugs, or put herself in any unnecessary danger."  It also allows him to dictate what she wears, eats, how often she goes to the gym, and that she must stay at his house every Friday through Sunday.  So Ana is really confused about whether or not she wants to sign this contract.  If it were me, the choice would be easy. I would have signed the contract, no problem, and then have shown up at his house drunk and with greasy hair the very next Friday.

From a writer's point of view, this book is sometimes painful to read. The characters are supposed to be from Seattle, Washington, yet the British author has not made any effort to try and make them speak any differently from the way she does. Less than four pages into the book, a character says: "Olivia, please fetch Miss Steele a glass of water;" the word "Lovely" is used FAR too many times; and the only word she thinks we use here in America is "Jeez," because she has Anastasia say it about 200 times.  She also obviously based some of Anastasia's speech on Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz because every time Christian wants to introduce her to a new and possibly scary sex act, she says, "Oh, my," as in: "Lions and Tigers and Bears, OH MY!" She also has the poor habit of constantly describing Christian's finger as his "long index finger" which immediately brings to mind the long, glowing finger of E.T., the Extraterrestrial.  But by far, the worst of all is Anastasia's continually telling us readers: "I do as I'm told." By the seventh time, I felt like saying: Stop doing as you're told for this control freak, Anastasia, please! Just grow some, OK?

So why have these books become the phenomenon that they are? Because EL James has created a hot leading man with a sultry teasing voice who knows how to do "things," so to speak. That's why. The women who love these books are willing to ignore the lack of literary prowess for the imaginary world of Christian's sexual prowess. EL may not be able to write a literary novel, but she sure knows how to write a good sex scene.

I think most of the criticism of this book is because people aren't taking it for what it is: an entirely fictional, could-never-happen-in-this-lifetime, x-rated romance novel. If you start the book realizing you are not supposed to take it on its word but, rather, realize you are reading a fictitious story with fictitious characters and are NOT supposed to go out looking for a real Christian Grey, you will take the parts that you like for what they're worth and realize you are on an amusement park ride. This book is NOT a novel, you are not supposed to learn any of life's great truths from it, and it is not now, not EVER, supposed to be taken as a book that you should try and emulate any of your future or current romances on!

The problem I had with whether or not to read this book was all the S&M stuff. I've seen way too many episodes of the TV show "Medium" (which often has psychos tying up women and bounding their hands above their heads) to be comfortable with Christian doing that type of stuff to Ana, but then I realized something:  Although EL James may not realize it, she has actually made a social statement because instead of continuing to have women fear these images and to look at them as something to get upset about, she has taken them back from the men who have always controlled them and has claimed them as her own.  Similar to how African-Americans have taken back the "N" word, and how Mel Brooks claims "The Producers" was written because he wanted Hitler to be funny as opposed to scary in order to take back his power. Again, I don't know if EL James knew she was doing this, but the women who read these books will now have a completely different way of looking at these images and can claim them as their own.

Overall, I liked "Fifty Shades of Grey."  There is an actual plot to it, although it is mostly a book to get turned on to.  For at least three quarters of the bookThis book is about two nymphomaniacs who have sex way more often than a person without the nymphomania disorder ever would. Not only do most people not want to have sex that often, they also don't want to read about it that often either.   "The man is insatiable, or maybe all men are like him. I have no idea, no one to compare him to," Anastasia says.   No, Anastasia, all men are not like Christian, and that's exactly the way we'd like to keep them!

An afterthought:  There are movies being planned for the "Fifty Shades" series as we speak, and my pick for the actor to play Christian would be Christian Bale, but 10 years ago.  It's not going happen, he is no longer 27.  But again, similar to the way I've enjoyed the majority of this book, I'm willing to embrace the unreality of the situation!

I Guess I'm Just Not Your Typical Romantic

Nicholas Sparks, romance author, recently chose his five most romantic films for "Entertainment Weekly." His choices correspond with a list of my own called "Chrissi's Five Most Repugnant Films."  The only film I don't hate from his list is "Casablanca," although not because I found the movie romantic.  I saw that film years ago, very surprised at how many lines from it had seeped into our popular culture.  I sat by myself in the crowded "Revue" theater, trying to be serious, when suddenly I heard: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine," which I'd only ever known previously as a sample from a song by one of my favorite '80's bands, "Big Audio Dynamite."  If that wasn't enough, there were also lines like: "Here's looking at you, kid," a variation of "Play It Again, Sam," and "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," all of which I'd originally heard as a kid spoken by a very popular character named "Bugs Bunny!"  So I do like that movie, but mostly due to its unintentional entertainment factor.

Now, here is my rundown of why I hate his other four picks:

1.  "Ghost"  I found it depressing and frightening. There's nothing romantic about one half of a couple dying.  And now I hear there is a Broadway musical of it coming out.  Oh, the torture!

2. "Titanic"  I had similar feelings for "Titanic" (with the added bonus of seeing blue people floating in the water at the end of the movie), but my biggest complaint is calling this movie a "love story" when it really is a "lust story."  Rich society girls don't fall in love with poor guys, but they just might have a lustful fling on a sinking ship.  That, I'll buy.

3. "Dirty Dancing"  The female lead's name is "Baby" because she's supposed to be so innocent, but about halfway through the film, she is naked and in bed with Patrick Swayze.  Turns out there's nothing innocent about "Baby" after all.

4. "Pretty Woman"  Absolutely, hands down, the worst of the bunch!  It's scary that people have nicknamed this movie "A Cinderella Story."  This is not a movie for young girls to one day emulate, particularly because of what's obvious to me but apparently not to others -- that the female lead (played by Julia Roberts) is a working prostitute!  Worse still, the movie dances around this issue by having Julia Roberts spill her guts about her seedy past to her "Prince Charming" (a/k/a "Paying John") without ever actually admitting that she does indeed have sex with men for money!  Watch the movie closely and you'll notice this.  I remember sitting in the theater that day waiting and waiting....

One movie I do find romantic is a movie based on one of Sparks' own novels called "The Notebook."  I hated it at first for the same reason I hated "Titanic" -- rich girls know to go for rich guys, they don't go for poor ones.  Initially, I had only seen the two leads as a young couple, but one night, I saw the movie on TV in its entirety.  The scenes of the now-old couple really got to me.  My husband found me crying in my recliner, and I tried to explain to him what I'd just seen:  "He didn't need to be in a nursing home.  But he went there to be with her," and "She wrote the book he's reading to her because she knew she was getting Alzheimer's, and she wanted to remember their relationship."  I was barely audible.  Now, I was truly moved by all of the movie because I knew I was seeing a real love story.

I don't buy that whole "love at first sight" thing.  "Lust at first sight," yes, but true love is what comes over time when a couple live together on a daily basis, some days are ordinary, others extraordinary, but that's the kind of love I believe in.

Who knows?  Maybe I'm wrong, and the leads in "Dirty Dancing" and "Pretty Woman" would have stood the test of time.  Maybe Ingrid Bergman did not get on that plane and instead wound up staying with Humphrey Bogart.  I'd watch the film one more time to really see how their characters interact to make my final judgment, yet I'm not confident I'd be able to see that movie again without constantly being reminded of Bugs Bunny!

Staring Out The Window

This week's blog post is about staring out the window.  Yes, you read that right.  I'm writing my blog about staring out the window.  In Banana Yoshimoto's latest translated-into-English novel, "The Lake," the female lead meets the male lead because they both have a habit of staring out the windows of their apartment buildings which are across from one another's.  When I read that, it reminded me of a Juliana Hatfield song from over a decade ago called "Outsider" where she sings about seeing an interesting guy from her thirteenth floor hotel window. 

Sometimes, people look for other people when they stare out the window, but other times, it's just a creative person needing some space from everyday realities.  My friend, Bella, once wrote this to me in a Facebook message: "You know, I'm having one of those days where I really enjoy just staring out the window."  To some, that may have sounded strange, but I knew exactly what she meant.  She had diverted her attention from the things she had to do that day, the chores and paying the bills, and she decided to just be and let the thoughts flow.

What do I think of when I stare out the window? Sometimes,  I'll stare at a particular tree that is just beginning to bud.  It will start to get dark outside, turning into dusk, and I'll wonder how people I don't see very often are doing.  I remember one time recently, I took quick peeks out my window while I watched that "Twilight Zone" episode called "The Jungle."  The background music sounded like it came from an action movie of the sixties -- when soundtracks used actual band instruments and not just a guy with a synthesizer.  The music took me back, and I thought about my dad's friend, Hans, and how he told me that he still has my dad's picture displayed in his house, and he often likes to reminisce about the good times they had when they used to travel on the road and go to different shows of bands they worked with.  Some nights, I'll have my glass of wine, stare out my window and wonder what Hans is doing right now.

That evening, I remembered all the hours Hans and I had spent many years ago, just listening to my dad's club band's reel-to-reels, him telling me about the music scene in the seventies, while my father's voice sang that song, "The Lady Is A Tramp," over the reel-to-reels which made Hans mention how much my dad really loved Marilyn Monroe.  If I hadn't been staring out the window just then, those details may have gone from my memory bank forever.

Parents are finally realizing now that it's not a good idea to overschedule kids with a bunch of activites, lessons, and playdates. When we were kids, we had more alone time, time to do "just nothing." People are now agreeing that "nothing" time while you are alone helps kids become more creative.

One brilliant example of this is the legend of how 1920's biologist, Alexander Fleming, was daydreaming, staring at a petrie dish and drawing pictures of the specimens, when he observed that the colonies of bacterium in the dish were being destroyed by a mold that had grown there.  Growing mold was not the purpose of the experiment, and his practice of daydreaming prompted the discovery of Penicillin.

Just like I had written a few months ago in my "Santa Claus" blog, immersing yourself in fantasy from time to time is essential for your mental health. Too much reality can destroy a person.  We all need moments of "unreality" to feel refreshed, so never feel guilty about spending a part of your day just simply staring out the window!

The Best Predictor You'll Be A Happy, Well-Adjusted, Adult

I have an unofficial barometer for measuring which years will be happiest for you.  Will they be the four teenage ones you spent in high school or will they be the vast majority of the rest of your life?  For the popular bunch who consider high school "the best years of their lives," unfortunately, they will probably forever remain so.  For the rest of us who remember high school as a bit "challenging," if not "impossible at times," the best is either now or yet to come.

Think of what that microcosm of time we call high school was really like.  It was a time when you had no responsibilities, and getting attention was first and foremost in your mind.  You were at an age where you were at your most selfish.  Hardly a time when one becomes equipped with the necessary resources for adulthood. If you were one of the popular crowd, exclusion was what you were all about since in order to BE popular, those not in your crowd, i.e,. the rest of us, would have to be left out of the loop. These are not good qualities to help you go forward through life.

I found this point illustrated beautifully in the movie "Young Adult." I finally rented it after being intrigued by the premise when it was released in the theaters last year. Charlize Theron plays Mavis, a thirty-seven-year-old divorced writer of novels for teenage girls, who now lives in Minneapolis with her little dog and is writing the very last book of her series which is soon to be cancelled forever.  She returns to her small hometown in Minnesota where she was once a "popular" girl, and she misses her high school boyfriend, Buddy, and that period of time which was the "best years of her life."


She decides to claim Buddy back as her boyfriend despite the fact that he's now settled down with a wife and newborn daughter!  Mavis calls him up, and Buddy agrees to meet with her platonically.  Later, he invites Mavis to see his wife's "mom rock band" perform at a club where she's the drummer, and all the other members are also moms.  They perform a song from their high school era which Mavis still considers to be her and Buddy's song.  That part was very symbolic to me because earlier we had seen Mavis listening to the song from a mixtape while driving in her car on her quest to get Buddy back, but when Buddy's wife performs that song with her "mom rock band," Buddy's wife reclaims it. Time has moved on. It's her song now. Hers and the rest of her band.  Buddy is all smiles while he watches his wife perform. You can see how happy he is. How settled. This is reality now.


At the end of the movie, Mavis marvels at the fact that "People here are satisfied with so little."  If high school hadn't raised her expectations so high, meaning that she must always be popular and better than everyone else, she wouldn't still have a false sense of entitlement.  She is now a member of the adult population.  She is just one adult among many.  Neither special nor entitled.  If "so little" means being happily married with a wife and daughter and having some fun on the weekends seeing your wife's "mom band" play, then yes, I guess the people in this town are satisfied with very little.  And yes, I'd choose that reality over being prom queen any time!

Whatever Happened To Good TV?

I'm anxious for this Reality TV craze to be over.  REALLY anxious.  It's got to be over soon, I mean, it can't last forever.  Of course, I've been saying this for the past ten years! TV crazes have always come and gone.  There was the night time soap craze of the 70's and 80's:  "Dallas," "Dynasty," "Knots Landing" and "Falcon Crest" to name a few.  "Dallas" completely took over pop culture consciousness!  I distinctly remember how much everyone talked about the Spring of 1980 cliffhanger where somebody shot J.R., the lead character of the show played by Larry Hagman.  Even all of us kids were obsessed with finding out "Who Shot J.R.?" We hadn't even SEEN the episode, but we just needed to know "Who Shot J.R.?" 

Later in the 1990's there was the "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" game show craze.  Everybody watched it, and everybody was dialing up the pre-audition telephone test because they felt a duty to be a contestant on the show if they were able to answer the majority of the questions while watching from home.  Even Regis Philbin's wardrobe with its shiny ties and suits were analyzed and copied.  But at least the popularity of these two TV crazes didn't kill the basic format of the other shows on during that time period.  There were still daytime soaps and family sitcoms, and there were still game shows like "Wheel of Fortune" (which is still on today and still uses its basic original format) . These crazes didn't hurt anybody, but Reality TV has killed the Writer.

Reality TV's simplistic and uninspired dialogue, and the plots that are acted out (yes, they ARE "acted out," as Reality TV is scripted, albeit poorly), are about as far from reality as any other fictitious TV show has ever been.  But what's worse is that it prevents writers from being hired to actually write good TV.  There are a handful of shows still trying to peep their heads out from under all this reality nonsense.  I try to cheer myself up by watching "The Good Wife," a  law drama in which the writing is excellent.  Good writers actually sit down and think about how to make the plots and characters both thought-provoking and socially-conscious, and even when you think you've gotten the whole theme of the night's episode figured out, the writers manage to throw you a curve ball at the very end so that what you thought you knew and believed the show was trying to tell you was actually something completely different.  Becoming a regular viewer of "The Good Wife" has helped make me feel better, but my most recent rental from Netflix actually made me feel worse.

From 1990-1995, a weekly, hour-long TV show named "Northern Exposure" had its run.  It was about a New York City doctor named Joel who was transplanted to a small town called Cicely that was in Alaska.  I felt a special kinship with Joel back then because I was a New York City girl who lived in Canada during that same time period!  When I rented it from Netflix and watched it for the first time after many years, it really hit home how much we've been missing from TV.  "Northern Exposure" could be a novel rather than a TV show.  The characters are so well planned out.  Maggie Malone was always my personal favorite.  I used to pop kernels from a popcorn bag every night in a saucepan on the stove rather than buying the microwave version because that's how Maggie did it from her log cabin kitchen.  I wanted to feel like she did.  I long to live in a relaxed town and experience the easy lifestyle of Cicely, Alaska, escaping the fast pace and stressfulness of reality (or even Reality TV where they're always screaming and fighting).  I can become so absorbed in her story. 

One of the episodes on my Netflix rental was called "Nothing's Perfect."  It centered around an older character named "Maurice" who was a former United States astronaut and was the wealthiest inhabitant of Cicely. In this particular episode, he orders a very expensive clock from Germany which is a one-of-a-kind treasure in both its rareness and beauty, but after showing it off to his friends, he discovers that it doesn't keep perfect time!  Maurice is furious and wants his money back, but then he mulls it over. He tells us about how when he was a young astronaut, he thought he would live forever, but now that he's older, he knows that time is not something he can control.  He wants to keep the clock to admire its beauty and to hold onto the small moments in life and to enjoy them and savor them while he can.  Thus, this episode reinforces my disdain for Realty TV. If time is fleeting, and our moments are precious and few, why should we all be forced to waste it on Reality TV?

For One Brief Moment, We Can All Live Forever

Luise Rainer is the oldest living Oscar winner.  I learned that in the recent Oscar issue of Entertainment Weekly.  She's now 102 years old.  The last time I read her name was back in the early 1990's in the diaries of Anais Nin. I used to skim through them at the World's Biggest Bookstore during my lunch breaks.  I didn't know anything about Anais Nin, but I liked how the covers of each volume of her diaries had the same picture of her face but shaded in a different color. Eventually, I read her diaries and got hooked.  She made me fascinated about what life was like for an artistic, creative female writer living in Paris in the 1920's. Whenever I read books of people who lived many years ago or see a movie made in the early 20th century, I can't help but think that their heyday has passed and most of them aren't even alive anymore.  In the early 1990's, a few of the people mentioned in the Nin diaries were still alive.  I particularly remember that Anais's youngest brother, Joaquin, was still alive and over 90 years old. It was weird to think that there was still someone around who had lived all those experiences that Anais wrote about who could possibly still remember all those things.   But years later, the next time I googled Joaquin, I found out that even he had indeed passed.  It seemed the allure of the 1920's was over.

Which is what I thought when I first watched the 1929 movie "The Broadway Melody," the very first musical made in an era of only silent movies.  It was about two singing sisters and their struggles to make it from vaudeville to Broadway.  It was SO dated. I couldn't believe the silly hand gestures the performers made as they rehearsed their numbers, and as I watched, I couldn't help but think how all of them had passed away by now. 

The next day, I googled the names of the women who played the two sisters to see when they died.  First I googled Bessie Love.   She indeed had died in 1986 at the ripe old age of 87.  Then I googled Anita Page.  I thought it was a mistake when I saw that Anita Page had no year of death next to her name.  When I read her entry, it said she was now 97 years old and living in California!  The next night, I watched the movie again, and as I watched Anita Page on the screen, I imagined her getting ready for bed in California, how the weather must be beautiful this time of year, and how she was not only living on the screen, but she was living in real life as well.

I decided to find out if she had a MySpace page.  Before Facebook hit it big, MySpace was the place to be.  MySpace was great because you could actually connect with celebrities.  I remember being MySpace friends with Danielle Brisebois of "Annie" and "All In The Family" fame.  And you could tell that she took care of her own page, so when she accepted my friend request, she actually saw my name and picture and clicked "Accept."  Many other celebrity profiles were run by fans and not the actual celebrities.  But if you were early-MySpace savvy, you could tell which was which. 

So I found Anita Page's MySpace page which only had about 20 friends total!  I friended her and wrote a very brief message saying that I had just seen "A Broadway Melody" of 1929 and really enjoyed it.  I never expected a message back and was so surprised the next day when I received this really brief message saying, "Thank you (written as one word "thankyou") for your message.  I'm so glad you enjoyed 'A Broadway Melody.'  I didn't like it back in its day and always thought it was Bessie Love's picture.  I do like it now though."  Was it from her?  A 97 year old woman?  I never found out for sure.  But when she passed away about a year later at the age of 98, this man wrote a message thanking her fans, and again, "Thankyou" was written as one word.  The same way it was written on the message to me.  Obviously my message was written by this same man.  No one writes "Thankyou" as one word. Was she mentally acute enough that when he told her about my message, she told him what to write back?  Or did he just know she'd respond that way and wrote AS her?  I'd like to think it was the former rather than the latter.

I feel that as long as there are people who are still alive from a certain era of time, their era never really leaves us, and some of its magic still surrounds us.  I watch the 1970's TV show, "Maude," at 10:00 p.m. every night. My parents used to watch reruns of it at that very same time slot when I was in grade school. Conrad Bain and Bill Macy, the two male stars of the show, are still alive. I feel like as long as they are alive, then that period of time from my childhood when I was tucked into my warm bed, feeling protected, will never go away either.  Luise Rainer is still alive, and Anita Page was waking up on California mornings the days after I watched her in all her youth in a 1929 movie.  We can pretend for one brief moment that no one really dies.   If we try hard enough, we can convince ourselves it's so.

January Is The Month Of The Snowman

January is the month of the winter blahs.  Just ask anyone.  After Christmas and Hanukkah, nobody cares for winter anymore.  Some people may like it since they hate the heat so much, or they like to ski, or they just like to be contrary while everyone else is complaining.  Most of us miss the sun by now, and for some people, these darker months can cause an actual depressive disorder called "Seasonal Affective Disorder."  I first heard of this disorder on one of my all-time favorite TV shows, "Northern Exposure."  The series takes place in Alaska, and their winters are darker than anyone's.  They  lead up to a winter day where there is twenty-four hours of darkness!  One of the characters, Holling, always finds himself hibernating in winter, so he wears a contraption with small light bulbs attached to it that shines on his face and keeps the darkness from getting to him.

My mom has always had another solution to keep from getting depressed during the winter months.  Every January, she decorates the house with dozens of snowmen and even throws all of her friends a "Snowman Party."  The one rule for the party is that everything has to be white.  We all wear white and eat only white foods.  We have white cheddar cheese doodles and Swiss cheese on white crackers for snacks, and later, we order ricotta and mozzarella pizza, no sauce.  The main event of the party is a "Count the Snowmen Game."  Before the party takes place, my mom goes around her house several times to do a meticulous counting of the snowmen.  She counts all the snowmen dolls and nicknacks but also has to count the snowmen on the tablecloth and any pictures she hangs up for the party.  After our white pizza, we go around the house with our snowmen pencils and papers and count all the snowmen in silence.  Whoever comes closest to the correct number of snowmen wins a prize which may or may not be a snowman.

I remember one particular winter morning during the first few days of January when my mom and I had breakfast at the local diner.  For some reason, I had an enormous craving for chocolate chip pancakes.  This was unusual because I never crave anything but eggs for breakfast, ever!  I'm a total egg person.  "That's because we haven't had any sunlight for three days," my mom told me. "Sunshine and chocolate BOTH increase the release of serotonin in our bodies, and serotonin is a natural anti-depressant.  But don't worry," she continued, "January is the month of the snowman.  Even if we don't get any sunshine, we'll both decorate our houses with snowmen, and we'll throw a Snowman Party.  Seeing those smiling faces on the snowmen will cheer us up!"  It's a lot of work to throw a Snowman Party, but think about it:  It's a lot more fun than wearing a device on your head filled with lights!