Here in Colorado the year 2007 has started off with heaps of snow piled everywhere, winds up to 115 miles per hour in the foothills, ground blizzards, and more time indoors than anyone should have to tolerate. Thinking time. Planning time. Eating time. Usually, I am carefully crafting my top ten resolutions about now, plotting how to achieve goals, win jobs, and influence editors. This month I am presenting three workshops about creating a more dynamic Internet presence. I am absorbed in learning all I can about blogs, blooks, and blarnivals, reading what others are doing and soaking up the lingo.

The big question in media today seems to be, will you be going “viral” this year? Yes, viral. As in spreading faster than the speed of bytes. The Internet, Youtube, MySpace, and blogs gone viral have democratized media and hit the delete key on spin control. Blogs are breeding at warp speed, people, and there’s no safe sex. Everyone from the self-proclaimed “gay Cuban” Perez Hilton, to the Sultan of Snark, TBogg, and the cult of The Sperminator, are covering the beat. From the TMZ (Thirty Mile Zone in Hollywood) to Wonkette’s Washington and the Coulter Crapometer, everyone's throwing fuel on the bonfire. No more sea to shining sea and amber waves of grain. Now it’s gigs to frat gags, opinions born in impulse. Privacy is dead and the funeral is interactive, attendable with the boot of a button.

As Paul Anka crooned it a half century ago, “Every little move you make, every little step you take” is now online. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing; it’s exciting, too. To set sail in cyberspace is an adventure. It’s an E-ticket ride on the biggest of bytes—and anyone can come along. But what does it all mean for those who love beautiful, expressive words and art, civility, and gracious manners? Sometimes it seems we’ve gone from sharing historic, life-changing moments to being immersed in a racing, stream-of-consciousness river of cultural trivia. It’s the new Wild West without boundaries.

The good news is that, as consumers, we can also be providers. We can still defer, discriminate, select what enters our personal zone. We can engage in creativity that adds to human knowledge, eases pain, offers color, design, and image in ways that lift the human spirit and far surpass the “here’s a photo of my butt, ain’t it grand” crassness of much of popular culture today. Am I going viral in 2007? Hey, I opt to join in; I’m not ready to be a spectator only, sitting on the bench while the game goes into overtime. I’ll pick and choose, blend, synthesize, morph, and, yes, maybe I’ll even go viral!

Here are my first offerings of the year --

-- Rosemary Carstens

FICTION THAT BLEW MY HAIR BACK:

Once Upon a Day, Lisa Tucker. Allen & Unwin 2006. Tucker wrote The Song Reader, a charming and delightful book, and her new one is also a winner. It is a wise, humorous, and intensely compassionate novel about the risks and rewards of loving when a single day can change things forever. A man and his wife, both renowned in Hollywood, are deeply in love. They have two beloved children. Then, one day, a random act of violence drives the man to extremes to protect his family. In time, the man disappears completely, taking the children with him to a remote “sanctuary” where they grow up believing their mother is dead. This is the story of what happens when the children become adults and re-enter the outside world—what happens when those who chose irrevocable acts are brought to account.

Broken for You, Stephanie Kallos. Grove Press 2004. Sometimes debut novels are so fresh and engaging they are irresistible. This is certainly one of them. Quirky but memorable characters include Margaret Hughes, an elderly woman with a secret and a tendency to converse regularly with her porcelain collection; Wanda Schultz, a young woman obsessed with her search for a boyfriend who suddenly disappeared; M.J., a bowling expert who doesn’t bowl anymore, who guards a tightly held love in his heart; and many others—each with his or her own unique voice. You quickly connect with and care about these people, their stories, their trials, and the overarching theme of broken lives and unique ways to mend them. Highly recommend for an enjoyable story with a universal theme!

When Madeline Was Young, Jane Hamilton. Doubleday 2006. Hamilton is the author of Book of Ruth and A Map of the World. She’s a skilled, deeply thoughtful writer. When I first began reading this story of a young doctor’s wife, Madeline, who suffers brain damage in a bike accident, and is left with the intellectual capability of a 6 year old, I wasn’t sure it was for me. The pace was slow and I kept asking myself, “What’s the point here?” Soon, however, I was caught up in the story and couldn’t put it down. The young doctor divorces Madeline and marries one of her friends, and the brain-damaged Madeline becomes “one of their children,” living with them through all the years, forever a child. The story is narrated by their son, Mac, as he tries with varying degrees of success to make sense of it all, weaving together bits and pieces heard from family members, gathered from his own observations as a boy, and as he imagines it might have been. Along the way, we find an intricately woven tapestry of a family’s response to a tragedy and how it shapes and alters the boundaries of love.

A Spot of Bother, Mark Haddon. Doubleday 2006. The latest from the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (a remarkable read). Haddon has an exceptional ability to access the absurdity of being human. That we are all flawed is nowhere clearer than in this story of a family’s dysfunction. It is strongly written, and hilarious, with the action and fun building like a snowball rolling down hill. As it picked up speed and I connected with each character’s nutty self-involvement and self-doubt, I chuckled and snorted aloud as they headed for certain collision, embarrassment, and disaster. Haddon proves once again that there is nothing funnier or more pathetic than family relationships—they are irreplaceable and essential, filled with conflict, all about them and never, often enough, about us. And family communications are often the most difficult of all—these people who know us the best and yet the least, who can always be counted on to misinterpret our grunts, hints, and unique qualities. Highly entertaining!

Sky Bridge, Laura Pritchett. Milkweed Editions 2005. If you’ve ever wondered what critics mean when they say a writer has an authentic “voice,” Sky Bridge will make it clear. Set on the plains of eastern Colorado in a barely surviving small town, this is a story about loving those who are difficult to love. Libby is a new mother—she promised her sister Tess that she would raise her child if she would forget about having an abortion. The baby is barely born before Tess is waving goodbye to their hard scrabble life from the passenger side of a beat up old pickup belonging to a man no one knows. Libby and Tess have had a hard row—their father left when they were little and their mother is harsh and brutal, a bitter woman incapable of expressing her love to her children and often resenting them. Libby tells the story and her voice is at once unique and yet often our own—made up of all those unrelenting thoughts that charge and argue through our heads every waking moment.

Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami. Knopf 2005. If you love a beautifully crafted kaleidoscopic story where seemingly disparate parts come together to form a surprising new image, you will love the work of Haruki Murakami. It’s hard to describe his genre—it isn’t really science fiction in the outer space sense, and it has a contemporary setting, but the work does bring Ursula Guin to mind. It’s a unique Japanese magical realism and has been described by Gary Fisketjon as a “tour de force of metaphysical reality.” Murakami digs deep into philosophical questions about identity and meaning of life. He’s a master of his craft and his imagination clicks right past ordinary boundaries. This story is driven by two main characters whose journey is as mysterious to them as it is to us and includes conversations between people and cats, rainstorms of fish, and other strange riddles. For something different, give Murakami a try. (The book jackets for Murakami’s books are masterpieces in themselves. Go to: www.harukimurakami.com to see them in the gallery. The artist/designer is Chip Kidd, who has a new book out about his work, listed below.)

JUST THE CAPTIVATING FACTS - RECOMMENDED NONFICTION:

Shadow of the Bear, Brian Payton. Bloomsbury 2006. Over a five year period, journalist Brian Payton travels the world to see the eight remaining bear species. It’s an astounding adventure as he goes from the jungles of Cambodia, to China, to Canada, to Peru, India, Italy, and the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. This is a phenomenal story, but, unfortunately, it is also a tragedy as we learn the state of these rapidly vanishing species and the lives they are forced to live. Everyone who loves wildlife and/or is concerned about our changing environment should, as they say at the card table, “read ‘em and weep.”

Es Cuba: Life and Love on an Illegal Island, Lea Aschkenas. Seal Press 2006. In 2000, author and avid traveler Lea Aschkenas makes her way to Cuba. She unexpectedly falls in love with the country—and with one of its compañeros, Alfredo, the man who will ultimately become her husband. This is much more than a love story. Aschkenas blends together history, culture, and politics with the complications of an interracial relationship between a man and a woman of quite different cultures. Lea tells her story in an open and extremely honest manner, allowing us to see the contradictions and concerns she experiences as her relationship with Alfredo progresses from a travel flirtation to something much deeper

Truck: A Love Story, Michael Perry. HarperCollins 2006. If “Truck” were a candy bar, you could say it contains humor and homespun wisdom in every bite. Perry’s latest memoir weaves three stories together—restoring a 1950s International Harvester truck, attempting to cultivate his own garden, and discovering romance after a lifetime of failed relationships. Truck is a book that both men and women will love, but perhaps it will be most enjoyed by the man who understands the attraction of working on something mechanical, the nature of relationships between men, and the desire to be self-sustaining through growing food and hunting. It gets a bit literary in its references at times, but otherwise is the clear-eyed view of someone who grew up in farming country in northern Wisconsin.

COMING UP AND NOT TO BE MISSED:

If You Lived Here, Dana Sachs. HarperCollins 2007. Author of the memoir The House on Dream Street, Sachs hits the ball out of the park in her forthcoming novel, due out in March 2007. Watch for a review in the next issue of FEAST.

Chip Kidd: Book One, Work: 1986–2006, Chip Kidd. With an introduction by John Updike and contributions by David Sedaris, Donna Tartt, Elmore Leonard, Haruki Murakami, James Ellroy, and Chris Ware, among others. Knopf 2006. Chipp Kidd has been described as “the closest thing to a rock star” in graphic design today (USA Today). Kidd’s creative and dynamic book jackets are visually dazzling, and this volume unites them for the first time, including many examples of his work for comics and graphic novels. His images are a montage of cultural icons and the inventive use of type, color, and line—Kidd sets the bar in today’s very competitive design arena. To see some of his work, done for Haruki Murakami, check out the hard cover gallery at www.harukimurakami.com.

Wolfgang’s Vault is a new discovery for me and I love going to the website to spend time surfing back in time to the birth of the modern rock concert. Among the most vivid cultural images of the 1960s in the United States are huge civil rights protests, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, and the brutal murders of Jack and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Every era has its sound track and, for that era, it was rock and roll all the way. Wolfgang was Bill Graham, a man with a remarkable talent as a promoter of rock concerts and the musical icons of the time.

Graham promoted over 30,000 shows, including 800 for the Grateful Dead. Along the way, he commissioned some of the most famous promotional poster art for legendary concerts and stockpiled pristine copies of them along with original tickets, photographs, recordings, and specialty items such as after-dinner robes for Nirvana, for over thirty years. In 1991, Graham died in a helicopter crash. His personal collection lay mostly forgotten until 2002 when it was purchased by Norton LLC, a Minnesota-based company. Norton’s CEO, William Sagan realized it’s potential marketing and historic value and now houses the collection in San Francisco in a newly designed 20,000 square foot, state-of-the-art warehouse.

If you’d enjoy a walk down memory lane, want to see what all the fuss was about back then, or are looking for a perfect gift for that old rocker in your life, check out http://www.wolfgangsvault.com. It’s a groove, man--

Michael Ray Charles. If you are unfamiliar with the innovative work of African American artist Michael Ray Charles, you are missing a visually stimulating experience. Charles works on canvas and paper to create carefully crafted, politically ironic scenes showcasing such pop culture images as Little Black Sambo, Buckwheat, and Aunt Jemima. No topic is sacred and these paintings are at once a bright, in-your-face condemnation of racism in the United States and an expression of the artist’s desire for genuine social change.

Michael Ray Charles is one of the featured artists on the DVD titled “Art : 21 – Art in the Twenty-First Century,” created from the PBS series of the same name. Charles work was chosen to illustrate “consumption”—that is, how artists interpret commerce, mass media, and consumer society. A slideshow of some of his images is available at PBS, and an essay by Cheryl Brutvan, a senior curator of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, NY, discusses his work in detail on their website.

Water. (2006) This is the third in a trilogy (the first two were titled Fire and Earth), created by Deepa Mehta, the incredibly talented Canadian-based Indian writer and director. The tender and poignant story of the life of widows, forced to enter “widows’ houses” in 1930s India, this film is a magnificent work of art from start to finish. As Mehta describes Water, it is filmed with “a quiet, observing camera rather than an obtrusive one.” While the plot is compelling and engaging, there is also a lot of subtlety here in her use of color, light and shadow, and in its sense of quiet justice. With an artist’s well-trained eye, Mehta pays careful attention to the three-dimensional negative space that frames each shot. She began filming in Varanasi, India, in 2005, but encountered bitter opposition from thousands of Hindi protestors who felt she was denigrating their religious or cultural beliefs. In order to finish filming, she was forced to relocate to West Bengal. This one is special and highly recommended.

LOW FAT FARE. Most of us, in the beginning months of a new year, are paying penance for indulging mightily in food and drink during the holidays. So, this issue, I thought I’d like to offer you some nonfattening fare that will still make your mouth water. Here’s a few food movies suggestions from earlier decades. Each entices in its own way. I make no guarantees about what watching them will lead you to do after the closing credits!

American Graffiti (1973) – This film is not a “food movie” as we think of them today, but the central set was a Mel’s Drive-In in small town California, and was one of the first films to show teens eating burgers and fries, drinking malts, and cruising the streets late into the night. It’s not a masterpiece by any means, but fun to watch to see the young George Lucas, Richard Dreyfuss, and Ron Howard (looking like he just slipped out of Mayberry), plus glimpses of Harrison Ford, Wolfman Jack, and Suzanne Somers—and the vintage cars are fantastic!

My Dinner with Andre (1981) – A classic. The entire film is about two men, Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, having a two-hour dinner in a fancy French New York restaurant.

Babette’s Feast (1987) – Of course, no list of food films should overlook the film that really gave birth to the modern use of food as a central character in a movie. I saw this one when it first came out. At the time, I was fairly new to the idea of reading subtitles and, while I enjoyed it, I was still in Hollywood mode and watched only for a surface story. Rewatching it recently, I found it rich in complexity and duality. If you haven’t seen it for awhile, you will enjoy it in a whole new way.

Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) – a blockbuster of a food film and the beginning of seeing Ang Lee as the genius filmmaker he is. This was Lee’s third of his “Father Knows Best” trilogy. This one has more refined cinematography than the first two. At one time, Ang Lee did all the cooking at home and he brought his appreciation of what food can mean or imply to this film. The scenes of preparation are real. He combined three kitchens and five top-of-the-line chefs, each with a different skill, to create his feasts. But Eat Drink Man Woman has sensitivity and emotion to it, too. Ang is an explorer of the human capacity for love, with food as a symbol of community.

I’m combining food and travel this issue with two diverse suggestions from among my dining delights while at a reunion in Palm City, Florida. The five of us women all lived in Mexico during the nineties and formed a lasting friendship. You might say these two recommendations hit two extremes, but, to us, they went from the sublime to the even more so.

Poppa Jimmy’s Catfish & More Restaurant, 149 South Lake Avenue, Pahokee, Florida. Visiting South Florida and in the mood for a little down-home cooking? This is the place for you. I recently drove about 900 miles in that area with West Palm as my hub. Poppa Jimmy’s was a fine find! As you can see from the photo, it’s not fancy—but all the cooking is done right there and if you are from the Rocky Mountain state like I am, eating fresh fish cooked up on the spot just can’t be beat! The five of us had fresh grouper sandwiches with the works (lettuce, tomato, onion, mayo—all on white bread), huge glasses of iced sweet tea, and I can’t reveal HOW many orders of sweet potato fries. The sandwiches were delicious, the grouper melted in our mouths. I’d never had sweet potato fries before, but we couldn’t stop eating them. Basically, I’d say you just julienne some peeled sweet potatoes, throw them in a metal basket, dunk them for awhile in a deep fryer and toss them now and then, roll them out into a paper towel-lined tray, and sprinkle them liberally with cinnamon. Oooh, doggies, they’re good! If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and say hello. I’ll be the big one back in the corner with a “Reserved for Rosie” sign on the table.

LaGrande Dame de la Champagne. On the evening the Democrats took back the night as they gained control once again of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, we raided the wine cache of the husband of our hostess and came up with a fifteen-year-old bottle of LaGrande Dame, hand carried home years ago from Paris. Bottled by Veuve Clicquot and named in honor of the woman who won fame with the invention of “remuage,” a technique that revolutionized the clarification of champagne in 1772, it seemed the perfect choice on the eve of the first woman Speaker of the House in U.S. history. It was. Every drop. Don’t let anyone tell you French champagne isn’t the best. Try it, you’ll love it!

Happy New Year and Good Reading in 2007 !

--- Rosemary Carstens