Pressure Cooker, the movie

You should check out Pressure Cooker, a documentary about a high school foods teacher in inner city somewhere (Philly?) who teaches her kids culinary arts in preparation for scholarship competitions.

(Lots of prepositional phrases in that sentence. Sorry.)

I think there's some swearing. I think it's the teacher. :) Boy, is she feisty.

You'll love her.

And she loves her kids.

My favorite quote from the movie is one character chiding her teenage pals, "Ya'll's palate consists of Fritos and Cheetos."

Or something like that.

Just thinking about it makes me smile.

Mrs. Mike by the Freedmans

The day we visited Macchu Picchu it was not a busy tourist day. We didn't have the place to ourselves, but we didn't have a lot of company either. No one chased us down to tour guide us, so we got to wander. Sit by the llamas. Flip water with our fingertips from the still-flowing man-made waterways.

The discovery was what made it so magical.

So it is with books. I'd never heard of Mrs. Mike, written by the Freedmans. Turns out the book is famous. Turns out a lot of people love it. Turns out it's right up there with A Tree Grows in Brookln. But it's better because I didn't know that it was so renowned before I read it. That's what made finding it all the better.

Add this to your list if you haven't read it. It's sort of like These is My Words, except Kathy marries a Mountie and goes north, not west. The writing is good, not sappy. The plot is good, not overdone. The characters are good, neither too real nor too fake.

And that's a description that makes the book sound average, which it wasn't. It was heart-wrenching. It was great.

Here's what Peggy Orenstein* had to say about it:

http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/Mrs-Mike-Changed-My-Life

Definitely would work for book club. And not sketchy---your advanced teen readers wouldn't be scandolized. Would be just fine for a high school home school literature class if you home school, or Katy, if you needed something for early 1900 Canadian history---though it's not history heavy, just a period piece.

Happy reading. Let me know what you think.

*Peggy Orenstein writes about the caustic messages that modern-day society sends young women. She wrote Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self-esteem, and the Confidence Gap. I used her work for my thesis. Good stuff, interesting culture commentary. Her other books, Cinderella Ate My Daughter and Waiting for Daisy are on my list to read. I don't agree with everything she thinks, but her outlook is interesting and, I think, worth considering.

A Separation. It's brilliant.

After reading my post about The Color of Paradise, my friend Katy suggested I watch The Separation, another Iranian film. It's directed by Asghar Farhadi. 

It's brilliant. It's just brilliant. You've heard the phrase, "All hat, no cattle." Well this is all cattle, no hat.

Not showy. Low budget. All plot. All character development. The plot revolves around an Iranian family dealing with the stress of caring for an aging father with Alzheimer's. And what happens when a caretaker is hired to take care of the father. 

This movie would be fabulous for a movie group who wanted something meaty to discuss. It would be great in a forensics class to talk about motive. I would also love to see it with someone schooled in Muslim religious law and Iranian civil law---there was so much to this movie than I didn't totally understand because I don't know the Koran as well as I'd like to. 

Watch this with someone intelligent so you can talk about it. Or by yourself on a night when aren't in the mood for P and P* or S and S* (nothing wrong with those) or when you don't want something funny or action-packed. But when you want a drama of all dramas, find this film.

And one final note. The last scene, the way it's done . . . wow. I just sat there for a long time. Wow. 

Let me know if you like it. And thanks Katy for a great recommendation! 

*This is Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. Of course. 

Genetics books for kids?

So I know this kid who has basic questions about genetics. Basic questions, but more complicated than I can answer.

Anyone found any book written on about a 6th grade reading level about genetics? . . . Something interesting preferably.

Just thought I'd ask.

Update in 2015:

This is the post on my blog that gets the most hits. I did review the book mentioned in the comments below and here's the link.

The Color of Paradise. It's lovely.

I'm really getting into these Iranian films. I'm not sure than any of my (very few) followers even like foreign film, but if you do . . . try The Color of Paradise, about a blind Iranian boy.

The cinematography is so beautiful. Most movies I'm just as happy to see at home, especially since I'm not into blowing up movies. You know "Blow up the car, blow up a building. Ooooh, cool, blow up a car AND a building . . ." Not really into those, but I talk to people who are impressed with these on a big screen. Me, not so much, and there's really nothing that's a big draw for me on a big screen. But occasionally a movie comes along where the colors are so vivid and the scenes are so lovely that I long for a theatre and a really big screen. This movie is one of those. It's art---and just as Vermeer is better in person versus via a print in a book, this movie was meant to be viewed on a big screen.

There's this scene with an old peasant woman walking through feathers that completely changed my view of artistic filming.

One of the things I like about these films is that they are not French. With French film, you're viewing something completely harmless and then the scene shifts into something sordid. No warning. There you are---you thought it was clean and now it's not. AH!

But these Iranian films are mostly about Muslim women. Modest and covered. It's just nice.

So I liked the movie. Just about broke my heart. I wasn't a big fan of the ending, but it was well-filmed. Watch it. You'll see.

Mel, do you and Quinn and do foreign film? Laura? Anyone?

The Language of Flowers by Diffenbaugh

As I'm coming out of my fog, it's been a welcome distraction to find some really great writing.

As with Vanessa Diffenbaugh's The Language of Flowers, about Victoria Jones, just emancipated from the foster system. The writing is stellar and truly a great first work for Diffenbaugh. At first glance, the plot's not complex: Victoria has to figure out how to live on her own as an adult. But the story that unfolds, about Victoria's past, about mothers and daughters and longing for family; about forgiveness and mercy and anger and healing; about love and being a mother and being a daughter----it's brilliant.

There might be one questionable paragraph (I skipped it :)) but this would be great for a book club. I wasn't completely satisfied with the "now everything is happy and peachy and look it's fine" ending, but that's just me. The book had to end somewhere and Diffenbaugh didn't kill off her characters to get there, so that's an accpetable first-novel ending.

Because there really were moments of brillance. At one point, there's a character who has just had a baby and for five or six pages Diffenbaugh gets into her head: the exhaustion, the fear, the weariness that comes from a baby who wants to nurse for twelve hours straight, the mind-numbing crying spells, and women who swoop in and say "Oh you're doing great, everything is fine" and then swoop out and the new mom (who isn't doing fine, everything isn't great) doesn't know what to do . . . it's accurate, that's what it is. It's painful to read it's so accurate.

I'd recommend it. Love to know what someone else thinks about it. Mel? Laura? Meg in Sheridan? Sarah? Anyone?

Finding the words for thanks

Thank you, all, for your kind comments about the loss of our little one. I am healing. Still mourning, but healing. We truly wanted another child. It was heart-breaking to witness this child pass from us. 

Someday if I can find the words, I will write more about my heart and what it has learned through this experience. At my 12 week ultrasound we knew that baby would not make it to term, and I choose to carry her knowing this pregnancy would not end in a birth. It was truly a privilege to carry our daughter even knowing her little body couldn't make it.

I have had so many loving and kind women succor and love me through this journey. Miscarriage is world I knew nothing about and so many loving women shared with me their stories of losses and longings of their own. A long-time friend told me (she lost her baby to stillbirth) about the sisterhood between women who shared their stories of loss with her: "It's the sweetest sisterhood I wish I was never a part of." 

My thoughts exactly. So thank you.