Elegance of the Hedgehog

The Elegance of the Hedgehog: Muriel Barbery: If you're looking for a book long on plot but short on words, don't pick up this book. The plot is very very thin, yet the book is extremely wordy. It concerns a 12-year old girl and a concierge in a French apartment building populated by the rich. Neither are quite what they appear to be. Renée, the concierge, was raised in poverty yet discovered the life of the mind and is interested in Culture and the Arts (and, yes, it's Culture with a capital C that interests her, although the fact that she also loves Michael Connelly endeared her to me). This is an interest she tries to keep from the rich people in her apartment building, hiding behind the stereotypes such people would have about a concierge. Paloma, the girl, hides herself from her family, preferring to live within her thoughts, which are so gloomy that she has decided to kill herself on her 13th birthday. The lives of these two change when a new tenant, a rich Japanese businessman, moves into the building. This is also the point (nearly halfway through the book) where I finally became interested in the story -- the convergence of the lives of Renée and Paloma. Kakuro Ozu is a man who can actually "see" these two people -- he understands almost immediately that they aren't who they appear to be, and he is the instrument of change in both of them. Through him, they both learn that other people can be a source of enrichment in your life not just a source of irritation and pain. Until Ozu appeared in the book, I'd considered just quitting reading it because I'd been a little frustrated with just living in the minds of the characters -- I wanted to see what their lives were like not just their thoughts. Although I ultimately enjoyed this book, it isn't one I'll reread.

Nuttiness and Bees

I've decided that Amazon is crazy. When I follow the link in my sidebar for Laurie R. King's The Language of Bees, I get taken to the page for the book with the cover image and everything. However, if I search for The Language of Bees in Amazon, I get this result:

The Language of Bees (Hardcover)by Laurie R. King (Author) Sign up to be notified when this item becomes available.

There's no cover image -- nothing -- but this book is already out -- it's been out. I bought it and read it.

The Language of Bees: Laurie R. King: I love this series about a young American feminist, Mary Russell, married to Sherlock Holmes. She brings humanity to the character of Holmes by giving him a personal life. In The Language of Bees, we meet Holmes' adult son, Damien Adler, who is an artist and a troubled man. He enlists the help of Russell and Holmes to help him find his missing wife and child. The wife has an interesting past, so the reader is never sure for quite some time if she's really missing or if she's just left Adler. Damien Adler's past also makes you wonder how complicit he is in his wife's disappearance -- after all, he's murdered before, maybe that makes it easier for him to commit other types of crimes. I like that I, along with Russell, am kept guessing about Adler and his wife throughout this book. And I enjoyed the book. Booklist calls The Language of Bees the best in the Mary Russell series; I'm partial to Locked Rooms because we learn so much about Mary in that novel that we never knew, but The Language of Bees is easily second.

Jazz Fest

Jazz Fest was a mixed bag for me. One of my son's friends went with me and that was fine ; he talked me into going to see Pete Seeger, who is now 90 years old. I'll never get a chance like that again and it was a lot of fun. He sings with his grandson Tao Rodríguez-Seeger and I enjoyed listening to them both. And they did "This Land is Your Land" -- love that song.

After that concert was over, we wandered the fairgrounds, looking for food and making our way toward the venue where Wilco would be playing. I know things are typically overpriced at Jazz Fest but $10.00 for some sunscreen? I stupidly hadn't brought any chairs with me and, while standing through the short Seeger concert was fine, I didn't want to do it for the much longer Wilco concert. $95.00 for two chairs!

Made it to the Wilco venue and they were wonderful. My seats at the concert in Mobile were much better, of course, because they weren't on the grass and they weren't general admission. But the relaxed attitude of everyone at Jazz Fest was nice and conducive to a good time. Wilco sang my absolute favorite song, "Forget the Flowers," which they hadn't done at the Mobile concert. Here's the set list for anyone interested:

Walken
Handshake Drugs
Company In My Back
You Are My Face
Pot Kettle Black
A Shot in the Arm
Side With The Seeds
Jesus, etc. (another favorite)
Impossible Germany
California Stars
Forget The Flowers
Box Full of Letters (the guy behind me said, "See, even songs from A.M. can rock!"
The Late Greats
Hate It Here
Heavy Metal Drummer
I'm The Man Who Loves You
Hoodoo Voodoo (with shirtless bass/guitar/keyboard tech Josh on cowbell)
Casino Queen
Outtasite (Outta Mind)

What made Jazz Fest such a mixed bag for me had nothing to do with the artists and everything to do with my daughter. She has such an exaggerated sense of how well she can take care of herself. During the final Wilco encore song, she told me was going to head out and she'd be just a little bit ahead of me. I couldn't find her anywhere! I asked to borrow someone's cell phone and she didn't answer her phone. I was pretty hysterical. I finally decided to walk back toward where we were supposed to meet my son's friend, and there she was! I had been so scared that I screamed at her like some crazy person and embarrassed her. So that was Jazz Fest for me -- mostly fun but scared at the end.

Ben Folds

The Concert

I don't know why it's taken me so long to write about this, but I saw Ben Folds at the Saenger Theater on April 6. Simply put, he was amazing! He'd been sick before he got here and still the energy he displayed on stage was unbelievable. He was non-stop -- across the stage -- standing up playing the piano -- jumping on top of something (I couldn't see what it was and although I bought my tickets late, my seats were still very good.) His energy was infectious. He did old, beloved songs (beloved by me anyway) such as Rockin' the Suburbs and Jesusland and he performed tunes from his latest album, Way to Normal.

Set List

1. Bitch Went Nutz
2. Effington
3. Sentimental Guy
4. Annie Waits
5. Cologne
6. Jesusland
7. Old Bastard
8. Lovesick Diagnostician
9. Fred Jones pt 2
10. Lullabye
11. The Last Polka
12. Improv
13. Brick
14. The Luckiest
15. Zak And Sara
16. Frown Song
17. Emaline
18. You Don't Know Me
19. Still Fighting It
20. Rockin' The Suburbs
21. Free Coffee
22. Landed
23. Army
24. Bitches Ain't Shit
25. Encore: One Angry Dwarf And 200 Solemn Faces

The Audience

Anyone who reads this or knows me is going to be shocked -- I can't complain about the audience -- not at all. Yes, they were loud and some of them were drunk, but most of them had obviously been to Ben Folds' concerts before, and he used their knowledge of his work and their rambunctiousness to his advantage -- he drew energy from the crowd until it became a back-and-forth thing between him and the audience. While I've seen excellent shows before (Wilco just stunned the crowd into submission), I've never seen an artist have such a good rapport with the audience.

Sarah's Key

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay: I got this book because, not only is it a novel of the Holocaust, but it takes an aspect of the Holocaust that I knew nothing about and fictionalizes it. Sarah's Key is set against the backdrop of The Vélodrome d’hiver Round-up: July 16 and 17, 1942 -- a massive roundup of Jewish families by the French police. From camps inside occupied France, men, women and children were sent to their deaths in Auschwitz. Before the deportations, the families were kept in a stadium for several days under deplorable conditions.

I find I am of two minds about this book -- which is fitting since part of the book takes place in 1942 and part of it happens in contemporary France. The main character, Julia Jarmond, is assigned a story on the roundup for the sixtieth anniversary of the event. She learns that her life is deeply entangled with the life of a 10-year-old girl, Sarah, caught up in this mass-arrest. While I found Sarah's story compelling, Julia annoyed me. I found her to be whiny, and her deep emotional involvement with Sarah's life before she even knew that there was a connection between them was insufficiently explained.

Even the parts of the book that tell Sarah's story from her own point of view instead of from Julia's seem to be better written and less whiny than the sections of Julia's life that are told from the first person point-of-view. I found some of Julia's actions inexplicable; she gave no thought as to if or how her actions might hurt other people. And Julia's husband, Bertrande! For Pete's sake! I found I couldn't muster any sympathy for him at all. In spite of the book's faults however, I did enjoy it and was interested to read about this aspect of the Holocaust.

Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!: by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith : Because we all know that that's what was really missing from Pride and Prejudice all along -- zombies! I actually cannot make up my mind if I'm going to read this. I kind of like the idea of it. Maybe I'd be sure if it were vampires, I don't know. I'm not that big into zombies.

Watchmen and Coraline

I'm in full geek mode here -- reading the graphic novel again before Watchmen comes out on Thursday. Look at that! I even know what day it comes out -- that's rare for me. I'm glad I'm reading it again because there are several things I've forgotten. I heard the movie is getting mixed reviews but I don't care. I'm off on Friday because I'm working today so I may even go to the midnight showing. Probably not though because I expect it will be too crowded, but I'll go on Friday.

Coraline: I saw this movie in 3D. I'd read the novel and the graphic novel before seeing it, and although a couple of things are different, such as Coraline's friend WhyB who is not in the book, that didn't detract from the enjoyment I got from this movie. When I first heard it was going to be an animated instead of a live action film, I was disappointed, but the stop-motion animation allows the movie to bring the characters to life in a way that a live action film could not have done. I loved it.