brainsplotch

We just got back to our motel after watching a mid-week matinee of the movie Disclosure Day at the Harbor Springs Lyric Theater. It felt fun to be the youngest people at the theater, though the ticket seller/concession woman asked us if we wanted adult OR senior tickets, so maybe we don't look as young and vivacious as I may have felt. We went to the movie--while on vacation--because the weather forecast called for lousy weather, so I felt vindicated with our decision when we stepped out of the theater at 7 PM to see it slate grey and pouring. As for our motel, the OTIS. I can't decide if referring to it as merely a "motel" is selling it short. It's arranged like a motel in that it's all on one level and the doors of the units open to the outside. However, it has a stylishly decorated common area with a bar, restaurant, cafe offering various espresso drinks, and mid-century modern decor. Jenna Bush-Hager stayed here on a book tour, so that has to lend it som...

I don't have another book to write about...yet, so allow me to discuss a movie I watched last night, Mile End Kicks . The year is 2011 and the setting is the hip Mile End area of Montreal, which I must admit I knew nothing about until recently. Nor did I know that, at this time, Montreal had a thriving indie rock scene. (And I call myself a music fan?). 22-year-old music critic Grace (played wonderfully by Barbie Ferrera, formerly of Euphoria ) leaves her job at Toronto's fictional Merch magazine for Montreal, where she plans on writing a book about Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill in the 33 1/3 book series. Grace arrives at her rented room (acquired through Craigslist) only to hear her new housemates having loud sex in the other room. Shortly afterwards, a slightly embarrassed Madeleine and her decidedly less embarrassed boyfriend (and third housemate) Hugo introduce themselves. Both are native French speaking Quebecois. Madeleine is friendly, but Hugo ...

Here is another "verbal vomit book review," this time for The Book of Mother by Violaine Huisman. Though I didn't LOVE The Monuments of Paris , I liked it enough that I thought I should definitely go back in time and read Huisman's first book in her series of books exploring her family (she has a second book, The Rose Desert , that I'm not sure has been translated to English. I can guarantee you my French is way way way too rusty and awful to read it in French). So let me dig right in. Violaine's mother Catherine Cremnitz was a complicated and mercurial woman. Born in humble circumstances, dealt with plenty of shit as a girl and young woman (I'll force you to read the book to find out), and had one brief and unsuccessful marriage before being almost literally swept off her feet by Violaine's father, (named "Antoine" in the book, but actually Denis Huisman).  The first third of the book is Violaine describing life with her mother....