Let me start off by saying, MY GOD, THE EARLY SEVENTIES WERE SOME GOOD YEARS. I have no idea if it's just a coincidence, but there are many "desirable males" that were born in '72, '73, and '74. That's not to say that there aren't a whole host of men that were born before or after who aren't just dandy, or that there weren't a whole host of jerk-offs that were born those same years, but in my own skewed mind, those years keep cropping up as the birth dates for some dudes I have lady boners for. It isn't relevant to anything, but I just thought I'd mention it.
There are only a handful of musical artists who's entire catalogue I can listen to and go, "Oh man, this is pretty much all so good, not even a strategically placed chocolate truffle could distract me from listening to these rockin' beats." One of the precious few happens to be this lovely young man, Andrew Bird. Even his name has a lyrical quality, it rolls off the tongue, and you hear a twittering in the distance when you say it. And yes, he whistles. Much better than you or I.
I've had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Bird twice in concert; take my advice, listen very closely, in fact, push your face right up to your screen and concentrate very hard: THE SOONER YOU ATTEND ONE OF HIS CONCERTS THE MORE COMPLETE YOUR LIFE JOURNEY WILL BE. At the latest show at the Orange Peel he had a pretty nasty cold, but played and sang like he had just awoken from the most restful and peaceful of naps and had sipped the nectar of the local honeysuckle. He plays multiple instruments (violin, guitar, xylophone, piano, etc.) and uses looping technology to turn himself and two or three other musicians into a full-fledged orchestra.
Know what else I love? He bridges the generational gaps brilliantly, marrying classical music with folk with a quirkiness that appeals to the most snooty of hipsters. I went with my mother and a co-worker some years my junior; we were joined by beret-ed fifty-something intellectuals, twenty-something hipsters in striped shirts and Converse hightops, braced and gawky teenagers with black X's on the backs of their hands, and a few gray-haired ladies waaaaaaaay in the back, as far from the speakers as they could get. It was a veritable melting pot, old and young coming together to fawn over the anemic maestro.
If you need a bit more convincing, that's fine. You apparently don't appreciate my expertise, and need a rough shove into the right direction.
One of my favorite records is Thrills, a stylized concept album that throws back all the way to the twenties and thirties, with a touch of ol' country standards, and is an excellent demonstration of Bird's flexibility and range.
Minor Stab
Eugene
Nuthinduan Waltz
The influence of Thrills is echoed on Oh! The Grandeur, but it swells larger and more grandiose than its predecessor, hence the self-mocking title.
Vidalia, a song about his grandfather
Tea and Thorazine, a song about his autistic brother
The Idiot's Genius
My other two favorite albums are a little more "contemporary," if you could call them that. They also have some of my absolute favorite songs and are a good place to start if the folksy rag-time is going to take you a bit of getting used to.
The Mysterious Production of Eggs [untitled]
Fake Palindromes
Tables and Chairs
Armchair Apocrypha Dark Matter
Simple X
The Fiery Crash
You may be thinking, wow, that's a lot of albums for me to take in. Guess what? I've been kind, there are buttload more to listen to. You can go to Mr. Bird's website to take it all in, hop on iTunes and see if there's anything you like. I hope you do like, because he's a musician worth supporting, and my friend Megan will probably cry if you don't, and why would you make such an adorable girl cry, that's like making a kitten cry, you are the goddamn worst.
WARNING: This post will be photo-heavy, probably with a fair amount of cursing, and the soapbox will be at least six feet high.
As a disclaimer, I am by no means an expert. I am merely a self-righteous appreciator of the art of animation who knows better than the people in charge of animation today. And guess what? I'm gonna tell you ALL ABOUT IT.
Mrs. Brisby looks out in caution, due to the impending diatribe.
There's something you need to know about me. I love nostalgia. I am all about it, all up in it, and sink slowly into a big pillow of it when I go to sleep. I'm that chick that has Rainbow Brite on her Amazon wishlist and is serious about it. I'm nostalgic about stuff I wasn't around for. That's how intense I'm talking. So recently, on a trip to the local thrift store I found An American Tail on VHS for a quarter and LET ME TELL YOU I about died and went to heaven. As a kid, I would make my mom check out that VHS and All Dogs Go to Heaven just about all the goddamned time. We owned The Secret of NIMH, which I probably watched enough to destroy the tape (as it is conspicuously absent in the boxes of tapes at home). After watching An American Tail, I was so enthralled by the memories and the new adult perception of the film, that I had to watch Don Bluth's other films. OH MY GOD PEOPLE.
One: if you don't get these movies for your kids, you're a terrible parent, and I'm reporting you to Social Services. Two: Christ, today's animators should just go ahead and jump off a bridge, crunch a cyanide capsule between their teeth, or lay down on some train tracks, because nearly all of today's animation can't even hold a candle to what Bluth and his colleagues achieved on comparatively shoestring budgets. Three: If you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, seriously, do yourself a favor and rent, borrow, steal these movies.
The Secret of NIMH An American Tail The Land Before Time All Dogs Go to Heaven Rock-A-Doodle Thumbelina Anastasia Titan A.E.
It should be noted that Bluth was the directing animator for Disney's The Rescuers, Lady and the Tramp, 101 Dalmatians (1961 film), and The Fox and the Hound, his influence stamped all over like no one's business.
It was after he left Disney that he created his own studio team, Don Bluth Productions, dedicated to returning to the old animation techniques, as well as using new, more labor intensive techniques to create the amazing artwork in the film. The Secret of NIMH was his first film on his own, and is generally considered his opus. The producing studio, Aurora Studio, bought the rights to the book, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH and offered Bluth's team a budget of $5.7 million and 30 months to complete the film, a smaller budget and tighter schedule than Disney films at the time. Despite the time crunch and lack of funds, Bluth and his producers mortgaged their houses and put in over 100 hours a week during the final stretch of filming to make their vision come to life. If only we could see that kind of dedication to quality nowadays, I think we'd be a bit better off.
This might be a good time for me to lay something out for you all. Despite it's trailblazing history in animation, and the numerous classic films it produced, and it's towering presence in millions of childhoods, Disney has gone straight down the crapper. Some time in the mid-nineties, they started piggy-backing on the talent and innovation of Pixar, and stopped requiring that there be any actual effort put into their films. Around this time they started putting out those god-awful filmatic abortions, the straight-to-DVD sequels to their classic films. Hardly any were safe, not Cinderella, not Peter Pan, not Lady, nor the Tramp. They also threw Mickey into the murky and squalid basement, only dragging him out to dance a grotesque mockery of his former glory, holding out the little fez for your change as Disney studios cranked the hand organ. Basically, whoever was responsible (and continues to be) for the creative and business decisions of the last fifteen years has been raping Walt's antisemitic corpse and smiling for the cameras while they did it.
What gets me, is that the general public eats this garbage up. They buy their kids the half-assedly animated sequels, the Hannah Montana t-shirts and lip gloss, and blow thousands of dollars at the Magic Kingdom where you spend most of your time waiting in a line. What's worse, Disney gobbles up the rights to our childhood, and then squirrels it away from the public eye until they decide to drag it out in a fancy package (that is actually pretty damn ugly and cheaply done) and "all new features" (hint: there aren't any new features, just some crappy interactive "game") and charge you thirty bucks for it. THEY BOUGHT JIM HENSON'S MUPPETS. DISNEY OWNS THE GODDAMNED MUPPETS. If I ever meet Brian Henson, I'm going to have to kick him as hard as I can, right in the shins.
Whew. I'm sorry, I get really upset when I talk about this stuff. Honestly, if I had one wish, it would probably be to be in charge of Disney and all children's programming, because seriously folks, they're fucking it up SO HARD.
Um, so, if you've made it this far, I did have a point to all this. I re-watched An American Tail for the first time in years, and I didn't make it past the opening credits before I started bawling like a three year old. The composers Bluth used for his films have a knack for finding those specific notes that twang my heartstrings and send the tears shooting forcefully from my ducts. What I couldn't figure out was how this never happened when I was little. These movies are terrifying, tragic, and beautiful, how is it I wasn't constantly walking around with the sniffles and puffy eyes? Being an adult, I recognize and appreciate the depth of the tragedy in these movies, and even the happy endings have a touch of sadness or morbidity. It's something totally lost on a kid, but as an adult, you better be ready.
For example, as a kid, I enjoyed this little ditty, and really only remembered the chorus. But listen a little closer:
Johnny Guarnieri - There Are No Cats In America
PAPA MOUSEKEWITZ: Our family was traveling Through the snow to Minsk Suddenly Papa Saw those huge paw prints When I heard him screaming I fainted dead away And I woke up an orphan Oy vey But...
ALL: But there are no cats in America And the streets are paved with cheese Oh there are no cats in America So set your mind at ease
ITALIAN MOUSE: Ma la cosa terrible Que esiste in la patria mia If you think things were bad in Russia You should see things in my country:
The times were hard in Sicily We had no provolone The Don he was a tabby With a taste for my brother Tony When Mama went to plead for him The Don said he would see her We found her rosary on the ground Poor Mama mia But...
ALL: But there are no cats in America And the streets are paved with cheese Oh there are no cats in America So set your mind at ease
IRISH MOUSE: Sure that’s sad, but sadder still...
When I was but a lad I lost my true love fair A calico, he caught us by surprise In a flash of teeth and fur Her tail was all he left of her 'Neath the heather Is where it tirra-lirra lies But...
ALL: But there are no cats in America (There are no cats in America) And the streets are paved with cheese Oh there are no cats in America (And the streets are paved with cheese) There are no cats in America There are no cats in America There are no cats in America That is why, we sail, these seas
In this movie, the cats were just munching on whole mouse families, did you see those Cossack Cats in the beginning, and wholly crap Madeleine Kahn's character walks into a wake and exclaims, "There's a dead mouse on the table!" Just...wow. You have to respect Bluth's refusal to ignore death and danger, just because it's a kids' movie.
Mr. Ages is not feeling Mrs. Brisby up, they are having a tender moment, dammit, Nicodemus is dead, what kind of person are you?!?
See that red stuff right there? That's blood kids. You better get used to the sight of it, 'cause you're body is just chock full of the stuff. It's cool, though, that guy totally had it coming, see the wavey-edged sword?
In fact, nearly all his films feature the not-so-nice and pretty plain death of one or more characters. It's a surprising realization to know that kids' movies have been softened and watered down so much that they're more ridiculous catch phrases and fart jokes than actual story.
If parents were concerned over the dogs in UP, how do you think they would have dealt with the Cossack Cats, Carface, Sharptooth, and Dragon?
If I had been a bird, I would have peed my pants, if I were the kind of bird that wore pants.
At some point American society became so terrified of damaging their precious little one's mind and psyche that everything became safe and mindless and sparkly. Quality went down the tubes, replaced by lights and computer generated special effects, and I'm wondering what the end result is going to be. If the teenagers that flounce into my place of work are any indication, I'm thinking of moving to Nova Scotia.
So most of this post has been very Debbie Downer, or rather, RAGING RACHEL, but really, I want to share my appreciation for what Don Bluth accomplished. I'd really like to find an address and mail him to let him know how much his work meant and means to me and my childhood.
*Quick plot synopsis: Recent widow Mrs. Brisby has to go to the secretive and mysterious rats of NIMH to help move her house before the farmer's plow destroys it and her son who can't be moved because of pneumonia. However, she stumbles right into a battle for power between the rats' patriarch Nicodemus and his loyal followers and clearly a bad dude, Jenner and his lackey.
The Secret of NIMH really is a masterpiece, one that stands up to today's fancy computer technology and shows that hand-drawn animation can be just as, if not more, effective an outlet for storytelling. The amount of work spent on this film is vibrantly apparent in every lovingly crafted cel, and the attention to detail is incredible. They studied animal movement and behavior, and one animator kept crutches by his table to mimic the movement of Mr. Ages. What I find the most impressive is that each voice chosen for the characters completely MATCHES AND EMBODIES that character, so much that you see the character, not the person voicing the character. Elizabeth Hartman's voice quivers and quakes and squeaks as the timid Mrs. Brisby who is forced by circumstances to be much braver than her nature would normally allow.
Glowing eyes and a Fu-Manchu mustache equals WISDOM.
John Carradine's voice booms and echoes as the looming, yet wise Owl, terrifying but also, somehow, reassuring. They are all pitch-perfect casting, mostly of people I've never heard of, but who create the characters so completely, you couldn't imagine anyone else doing it.
I also found the subtle animal rights vs. science to be an interesting conundrum.
Stupid meat sacks and their needles.
As an adult, we know that without animal testing, most of our vaccines and medicines wouldn't be as effective as they are. But from the point of view of the animals, one wonders just how necessary a lot of testing is. Though on the other hand, without the experimentation of the humans, the rats would not be as smart or able to build such a magnificent society. But yet again, the rats seems to hold their intelligence as somewhat of a burden, a secret that can't be revealed to anyone, lest everyone be endangered. It's a big windy road of twine that is making my head hurt in a good way.
And my god. The art is just...astounding.
The booklet sez: This scene required about 96 layers of cels. Dems a lotta layers!
Multiple color palettes were used for characters to fit in different lighting situations, from daylight, to night, to warm environments to underwater. Mrs. Brisby had 46 different lighting situations, so there were 46 different color palettes for her.
Bluth's animation team used multiple passes on the camera to achieve transparent shadows, and backlit animation, where animated mattes are shot with light shining through color gels to create glowing, artificial light and fire.
Remember what I said about glowy eyes and the 'stache? PROOF.
Messiah Mouse!
I seriously choke up during this part, I don't know if it's the fact that her children are suffocating, or the intensity of her desire to save them, or all those solar flares shooting off her body, but it's intense and I'm crying my eyes out.
Fun Fact: Mrs. Brisby was originally Mrs. Frisby, as in the title of the book. The creators of the toy "Frisbee" refused to waive the use of the similar sounding name, so the film team had to go back and change each instance of "Frisby" to "Brisby" by fudging the sound or pulling a "B" sound from somewhere else in the character's dialogue. Though it's a silly situation, I like Brisby better.
So, I hope you don't hate me too much for this. I just really like my classic animation. And Dom DeLuise.
"Courage of the heart is very rare. The Stone has a power when it's there."
Wow guys, I apologize. I am just terrible at doing this on a regular basis; between a full-time job, a significant other, surfing the internet, and all those danged friends demanding time and attention, where am I supposed to squeeze in some blogging? I mean really?
But anyhoo, guess what I've got for you? Some stuff I like! Woo!
The other day I spent the majority of my time free of responsibility sitting on my duff transfixed by this webcomic I came across. Literally, I could not stop reading. It's been ongoing for five years and the author's artistic style has grown in leaps and bounds (warning, you will have to start at the beginning and plunk your ass down for six hours).
The story follows Fiona as she tries to navigate life at her Catholic high school and at home with her mecha-betch stepmother (keep "Cinderella" in mind, folks) and befriends, then falls in love with, her new neighbor, Lia. The author is herself a lesbian, and the issues that surface with coming to terms with being gay are addressed during the story.
Although some aspects of the story during the part one seem fairly overdramatized high-school kitsch, one: there is a very good reason for it, revealed at the end of part one, and two: C'mon, we all know that you still hoard one or two of the more juicy Babysitters Club books and your Dawson's Creek DVDs deep in your closet of shame. However, if you pay attention, you'll find that the author introduces incidents early in the story that come into play much later. I love this kind of storytelling; it means that the author has thought out the plot and put a lot of effort to surpise the reader, but also make it a cohesive unit. If you can make it to part two, the pay-off is great. She also goes in-depth exploring dreams (a primary theme); how they can affect our sense of reality, how they can seem like real life, and how they can become a place to escape to when life becomes too much to handle. This is probably one of the main reasons I identify with the comic; when I was in high school, as a way to cope with depression I would sleep a lot. It was a lot easier to do that than to deal with the fact that every day of the week felt the same and that I was so bored with everything, my brain was obsessing with the most insignificant details of my day. Sleeping and dreaming about those details, however, really didn't help. (Don't worry, I found some self-esteem at college, and things are (more or less) right as rain.)
One of the things I love the best (besides Fi's curly red hair and red hightops), is how the art has matured over the course of the comic. It begins in an amateur anime style...
then add a splash of color...
occasional dabbling into a different style...
It is good times, Charlie Brown. But it's really in Part Two that the author exercises her artistic ability and whips out all different kinds of styles, all of which make me squee.
Picture 'splosion.
It's entirely possible that you could just start at Part Two and read on from there; the author is kind enough to have little footnotes when something in Part One is referenced. But I would really encourage you to start at the beginning so you can appreciate how much the author has grown as a writer and an artist. She's absolutely an artist worth supporting, one of the few making her living doing what she loves, and doing it well. Not to mention that her deviantart.com shop has some goodies that I can already see my next paycheck going towards.
In other news, I went to see the new Harry Potter movie. I know you don't want to hear one more conflicting opinion on the subject, so I'll just say that me, personally, I enjoyed it very much, but was a little disappointed with three or four things. This is the kind of movie that everyone is going to feel differently about, regardless of the level of fan you are of the books or the franchise, so really, instead of listening to what other people think, you should just shell out the ten bucks and go decide for yourself.
Writer/director Rian Johnson has joined the ranks of the unappreciated filmatic geniuses along with Christopher Nolan, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and Michel Gondry (I was trying to think of a female director to round this out, but of course, I couldn't think of any off the top of my head. But I think it's safe to say that all female directors are underappreciated.) If you missed his debut film Brick, you need to stop reading this, run down to Blockbuster or your best film-obsessed friend, and get your hands on that movie. You need to watch it, then come back and finish reading this.
It's okay, I'll wait.
All done? Good. What did you think? Pretty effin' good, right? Detective noir set in a high school with some of the snappiest dialogue since Snatch? Yes. A thousand times yes. Now, to The Brothers Bloom.
Brothers is a more lighthearted film than Brick, and, though set in the present, has whispers of decades past thanks to brilliant costuming by Beatrix Aruna Pasztor (Costume designer for Æon Flux and Vanity Fair) and filming in Montenegro (I smell a new vacation destination). The characters are quirky, and if you know anything about me, I love quirky characters. Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody star as brothers who, after a hilarious childhood montage narrated in poetic rhyming prose, become gentlemen thieves, the classiest of con artists, fellows one wouldn't mind being swindled by. Ruffalo is Stephen, the elder brother and mastermind of the cons, which he writes like Russians write novels.
Brody is the younger, more brooding and anxiety-ridden, brother, the lonely protagonist in Stephen's plots who wants out of the conning game, but can't find the strength to leave his brother and the only life he's ever known. Joining them in their exploits is Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi), the sexy, mute Japanese demolitions expert.
Let me just say that while watching this film, keep an eye on Kikuchi. Though she has very few lines, her mannerisms and interactions with the brothers are HILARIOUS, but not over the top. She also has a lovely moment of karaoke featuring her real voice, because, you know. JAPANESE.
For the brothers' last con, they take shut-in millionairess Penelope (Rachel Weisz) on a whirlwind adventure in antique smuggling. Penelope is reminiscent of Evey from The Mummy, but is different enough that the two characters stand apart. Penelope is more awkward, more excitable, and so goddamned precious you're going to be waving your fists in front of you going, "Eeeeee!" for a good portion of her screen time. Oh, and by the way, that card trick she does while talking to Brody's character about her childhood? Yeah, Weisz spent a month learning that trick for the continuous shot of her hands. She also learned skateboarding and rapping from Brody while shooting for the montage of Penelope's hobbies. BAM.
Besides the acting, which is superb, the writing, which is inspired, the story, which is fresh take on an age-old genre, and how achingly adorable the characters are, MEN PAY ATTENTION NOW, this movie makes me reevaluate my wardrobe. I know, guys, I know, CLOTHES ::SNORE::, but look, everyone in this movie looks AWESOME, especially the men. Pinstripes, vests, bowler and porkpie hats, cravats, driving gloves, black, white, and dark grey, OH MY GOD YOU MEN NEED TO DRESS LIKE THIS ALWAYS.
ALWAYS.
It's really hard to talk about this movie without giving too much away; now, in my perusal of the internets for pictures, I've come across some reviews that were decidedly in the negative vein. Some nonsense about this film being "ostentatiously quirky," and being "over the top." These people clearly haven't seen Twilight, so they don't really have a proper frame of reference of what constitutes a bad movie. Someone else drew an unfair comparison, saying that Johnson was ripping off Wes Anderson; while they both have an eye for cinematography and color and costume, Anderson's characters tend to be disconnected from their emotions, while Johnson's experience the strata of mood and actually demonstrate that outwardly. Anderson's movies also tend to slowly saunter towards their conclusions, whereas Johnson's are fairly active and quick-paced at times. This is nothing against Anderson; I do enjoy Wes Anderson films, but personally I think there is a definite separation between the two directors. So, you know, me and those guys, we can't go to the same Olive Garden anymore.
I saw this movie twice, and I enjoyed it just as much on the second viewing as I did the first. This absolutely will be going into my DVD collection, and I've pretty much hassled everyone I know to go see this film immediately. As my mother said when we went to see this, "I was so disappointed when it ended; I was like, wait, I can't just live in this movie forever?"
ps. Check out the cameos of Brick players Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Noah Segan, and Nora Zehetner.
After watching my Poirot DVDs twelve times over, I've turned to my massive Agatha Christie collection to satisfy my craving for mystery, the 1930s, and French-speaking Belgians. Oh, you don't know what I'm talking about? WELL LET ME ENLIGHTEN YOU.
I'm a bit of fan-girl when it comes to Agatha Christie's greatest fictional character, Hercule Poirot, one of the most adorable detectives EVAR. Poirot is a former Belgian police detective who moves to England and becomes a private detective, unraveling the most obtuse and Gordian-knot-like mysteries. And honestly, if you ever need to bump someone off, her books are a pretty excellent how-to.
I own over half of Christie's nearly 50 Poirot novels, several of which have been turned into one of the most excellent of detective shows starring the inimitable David Suchet as Poirot. Still turning out the occasional tv special, the series has been going since 1989. As a kid, one of my most favorite things was staying with my grandmother on Long Island and watching PBS's "Mystery!" theater while laying under the covers in the dark on the blowup mattress in the living room. A good portion of my attachment to the show is the result of such well-formed memories, but in all honesty, the show really is that good. Suchet is THE perfect, quintessential, and only Poirot. The prim and exacting minuscule detective with the elegant mustache is embodied in Suchet's performance; if you watch carefully, you will discover an entire catalogue of mannerisms that create a real, living embodiment of a fictional character. Not to mention that Suchet's accent and use of French is parfait, and you will find yourself repeating the words for later use.
My love of Poirot in this context is such that if I were to ever meet David Suchet, I would have to insist that he wear the mustache and speak with the accent. I couldn't talk to him otherwise, everything he said would just sound like white noise. Not to mention that I can't stand anyone else playing Poirot. I rented the film "Murder on the Orient Express" once, and after ten minutes I'd had enough, it was so painful watching another actor massacre my image of the little detective.
What is interesting, and something that I have discovered in reading the novels, is that the writers of the show have actually improved on Christie's design: in the novels, Poirot is a little bit of a dick because his well-earned ego is so huge. He consistently reminds his pal Capt. Hastings what an idiot he is, and how inferior he is to Poirot's superior intellect. In the show, Poirot is well-aware that he is the best there is and that his friend isn't as smart as he, but he is a bit more humble about it and doesn't make Hastings feel like an ass unless the situation calls for it. The relationship feels warmer and based on mutual respect and affection rather than an audience for Poirot's impressive use of his "little grey cells." The books also paint Poirot more akin to a cat, with flashing green eyes and a dainty, nimble quickness. While the twinkle remains in Suchet's eyes, he's portrayed as a portlier fellow, someone who clearly enjoys the finer foods and drink and the comforts offered by British high society. I'm okay with this, because he's still dainty and fussy and the fanciest of dressers. How fancy? He has a special napkin that buttons to his shirt front for meals. He has a silver case for his cigarette ashes. He wears SPATS. He is so goddamned fancy.
Another reason I love the show is the immersion and dedication to the setting and costumes. ART DECO MOTHERFUCKERS.
I squeed pretty hard during an episode when I recognized a giant oil painting in the background as being done in the style of one of my favorite painters, contemporary to the period, Tamara De Lempicka.
So, if you're curious, as far as the books go, some of my favorites are: Murder on the Orient Express After the Funeral Murder in Retrospect Elephants Can Remember One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
The great thing, and also the worst thing, about her books is that once I start reading, I find it very difficult to stop, because I want to get to the end with Poirot's fantastic denouement and find out the who/what/where/when/why of the plot. This means that I actually manage to get through more than one book in a week, but it also means that I don't get much else done.
So if you love the 30's and 40's, art deco, Britishisms, detective stories, psychology, and tiny Belgian detectives, you can pick up any of Christie's novels up at the library or bookstore and find the DVD collections of the television show at Amazon.com. It's well worth it. Look at those mustaches!
Til next time dear reader; I hope it won't be another 10 days.
