Writing

Judging a book by its cover and other things

Books, Writing

This has been a year of circling back and I’m not sad about it. 

When an L.A. Times editing gig took a delightful turn in March, I gained temporary oversight of book reviews and reacquainted myself with the New York publishing world I left decades ago. Diving back into this world was a treat, alternately daunting (given the high volume of releases and tight review budget at my disposal) and thrilling (reading good books and well-crafted critiques). My editing duties are winding down, but I have savored the gig while it lasted, just as I told myself to do when it began.  

I also discovered a woodsy creek side trail near my new home that’s a lot of fun to run. Canopied by trees and gently rolling, it reminds me of East Coast trails I took for granted before moving to L.A. Running down the hillside trail just like I used to in my younger days has been another Proustian treat in recent months. 

But back to books. My brief marketing job at Viking Penguin (as it was then called) was not right for me in a number of ways, not least its pitiful salary, but it did give me a glimpse into the business side of book publishing, and an oft-repeated anecdote about xeroxing copies of Stephen King’s “It” manuscript along with a less-traveled one about “The Basketball Diaries” author and “People Who Died” singer Jim Carroll hitting on a co-worker’s teenage daughter.  

The actual marketing work? That had mostly faded from memory until my L.A. Times inbox started filling with pitch after pitch for coverage, jackets and titles blurring together in a sea of familiarity even as I reminded myself of the work that goes into individual book promotion. 

Happily, there were plenty of distinctive offerings in the mix. One example: “Pick a Color,” a promising debut novel with a punchy title and jacket to match. 

Souvankham Thammavongsa’s book, published by Little, Brown late last month, takes its title from the question nail salon workers ask customers as soon as they walk in the door. In just one of many amusing details, all the workers go by the name Susan to make it easier for customers while also playing on the fact that many of them can’t distinguish between similarly named and outfitted workers.  

But Thammavongsa, a Canadian Laotian poet who previously wrote a well-regarded collection of short stories, makes it clear that they all have inner lives, as downplayed as they might be for customer consumption. Most vibrant of all: the narrator, a former boxer who revels in the freedom that comes with owning her own shop. The novel didn’t hold my attention to its conclusion but I was knocked out by Thammavongsa’s voice and the world she dramatically conjured in “Pick a Color.” 

Wait, there’s more: Here is a link to my L.A. Times feature about “The Carpool Detectives,” a true crime book that reads like a novel, and guide to of five L.A. area novels released this summer. The authors for the latter graciously explained why they set their novels where they did and supplied their favorite local hangout spots, enabling readers to craft their own literary adventures as desired.

Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt in The Fall Guy

The Fall Guy reminder: Less can be more. And that’s a good thing

DG Creations, Writing

If you haven’t seen The Fall Guy yet, do yourself a favor and stream it on Peacock — but watch the original version, not the extended cut. As is so often the case, the storytelling was tighter in the theatrical version.

In a restless mood this weekend, I clicked on the extended cut tile without taking a few extra seconds to look for the theatrical version. Before long, I started to wonder if various segments were added scenes because they seemed to slow down the momentum. What can I say: Once an editor, always an editor.

Sure enough, I then watched the original version, which is 20 minutes shorter, and the pacing seemed better. To me, at least.

I get why studios release extended cuts or director’s cuts — they can potentially appeal to fans and bring in additional revenue. During the height of the DVD boom, studios would regularly release extended cuts of newish releases and those deep in their respective catalogs, in many cases targeting the fourth-quarter holiday shopping period. Those of us covering the biz would joke about the umpteenth version of The Wizard of Oz that Warner Bros., owner of pre-1986 MGM catalog, was releasing that year. Along those lines, I discovered while going through our home DVD collection a while back that we had multiple versions of The Christmas Story on our shelves, each tin with a different promo add-in such as holiday cookie cutters to sweeten the potential gift purchase.

But I have found — and your mileage certainly may vary — that original, shorter theatrical releases tend to be better. So it was with The Fall Guy this weekend.

Either way, the movie has a lot going for it — a disarming performance from Ryan Gosling as a stunt performer with hidden emotional depths and great rapport between his character and Emily Blunt’s Jody, a camera woman turned director. The script is amusing and chock-full of inside Hollywood jokes; there are more than enough action stunts in the shorter original version.

Best of all: I did not miss whatever was added to the extended edition, which to me demonstrates the craft involved during the theatrical editing process.

There are definitely examples of less felicitous editing. Harvey Weinstein earned the sobriquet Harvey Scissorhands for his propensity to aggressively cut movies that his company distributed. And as a journalist, I have experienced brutal edits upon occasion — something I try and keep in mind when I’m polishing or reshaping another writer’s work.

There is a delicate balance between allowing work to breathe and allowing it to breathe too much: Work can all too easily lose shape or energy — be it film, TV or prose.

And The Fall Guy is well worth a watch if you have access to Peacock.

Bridgerton Season 3

Yes, there are Bridgerton rugs – and I may buy one

DG Creations, Lessons in Remodeling, Writing

Like so many, I’ve been riveted by the presidential campaign and the gender dynamics at play. I even planned to write about it when the DNC convention ended. But what to say after so many others have already weighed in on the topic?

So I moved on to another pressing issue: the heretofore unknown to me ubiquity of celeb-branded home decor. The aha moment came while shopping for a rug to adorn my new home office in the mid-mod house we are renovating.

When we repainted my current home office a while back, I meant to get a new rug to complement the freshly applied coat of periwinkle but instead put down an old rug to protect the hardwood floors in what was meant to be a temporary solution. Years later, it’s still there.

As we spiff up what we expect to be our forever home, I am determined not to repeat that mistake borne out of indecisiveness and misplaced thriftiness. So I resumed my search, soon toggling over to Ruggable, which has been bombarding me with social media ads for an eternity.

Maybe, I told myself, the rugs will actually look good.

As suspected given the many styles of rugs that have popped up in my social media feeds over the years, there are tons of options on the site. But what really got me were the sponsored collaborations: I’m talking Goop, the late style icon Iris Apfel, Jonathan Adler and even Bridgerton.

My first instinct was to roll my eyes at the choices, especially the Hollywood tie-in. My second: to click on the Bridgerton tile — only to discover some of the rugs actually look cute.

Reader, I might even buy one.

And yes, it seems silly to even contemplate such a thing. But what if I just like the pattern?

Rational, skeptical me would have scoffed at the notion of such a purchase 20 minutes earlier. But now I’m contemplating it, even as I ponder weighty follow-up questions such as: exactly how many Bridgerton licensing deals and tie-ins are there, anyway? What’s the weirdest one out there? And: How much money does Shonda Rhimes get for them?

The scope of licensing deals has become truly dazzling over the years: I remember loving a Jungle Book movie promotional record my grandparents gave us when I was a kid, though my company man father wasn’t as keen since they got it at a gas station rival to Arco, his employer. And I have tracked licensing deals and promo tie-ins as a journalist, first homing in on marketing activity related to VHS and DVD launches.

At least in those cases, there was an obvious connection to the merch: Today’s celeb and Hollywood endorsed goods run the gamut from food items to liquor and, yes, home improvement products.

Earlier in our renovation process, I was tickled by the existence of self-stick wallpaper from TV’s Property Brothers — and ended up purchasing it to line stained kitchen shelving for a similar reason I am contemplating a Bridgerton rug: I liked the pattern better than the other options in the store. But at least that product seemed more closely linked to the duo’s work – home improvement — than a line of rugs tied into a streaming show set during the Regency era.

Even after all my years covering showbiz – and vague awareness of promotional blitzes tied to Bridgerton — that surprised me. Turns out, Hollywood branding deals really are all around us.

More Bridgerton goods:

Petit Fours, teapots and blood orange mixer at Williams-Sonoma

Various goods from The Republic of Tea, available via World Market and elsewhere

Official coloring book via a collab with Random House

Netflix merch

Plus, my favorite home entertainment story, written for Variety: The death of VHS

The vicarious amusements of salmon sperm facials and other wacky Hollywood fitness and beauty fads

Writing
Rosalind Russell working out in The Women
Rosalind Russell goes through the motions in The Women

I’m endlessly fascinated with Hollywood heath and beauty rituals. Is that so wrong?

A million years ago when I was a fact-checker for TV Guide, then based on the outskirts of Philadelphia and arguably at the height of its influence, my co-workers and I used to marvel at how goofy West Coast publicists seemed compared to their East Coast counterparts. New York publicists would bark at us when we attempted to confirm information in those pre-Web days, while those in Burbank or nearby would happily root through their trash to help us when we could catch them on the phone due to time-difference constraints in that less-connected era.

Decades after I moved to L.A., I still feel like a stranger in a strange land upon occasion — especially regarding health and beauty regimens of Hollywood denizens.

Last week, still basking in the afterglow of the Summer Olympics, I caught up with the phenomenon of salmon sperm facials, apparently something that Jennifer Anniston advocated a year ago in a Wall Street Journal feature, and not actually a new trend, just new to me, thanks to Kim Kardashian talking about it in a recent episode of her family’s Hulu reality show and publications dutifully writing about it.

This line in an L.A. mag article about Kardashian’s use of the beauty treatment really amused me:

“The 43-year-old influencer didn’t go into details about how effective injecting milt, which is extracted from fish testicles, was for producing firmer skin.”

The story goes on to explain how the sperm is harvested, in case you were wondering. As for Aniston: “When it comes to looking young, she says she’ll try almost anything once,” per the WSJ.

Vintage Betty Boop cartoon with exercise belt

There have been many health and beauty fads popularized by Hollywood over the decades, some quite ludicrous in retrospect. Watch old movies on TCM and you might see women utilizing ridiculous (to my contemporary eyes) vibrating exercise belts that supposedly melt away fat, while other trends include “Can You Feel It” aerobics of the Jane Fonda era, Suzanne Somers’s Thighmaster device and so on. Decades before superheroes took over the multiplex, studios employed fitness trainers for their talent under contract; these days, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman banter about the latter’s training for Deadpool & Wolverine to the press, including for this Variety cover story.  

There’s undeniably a dark side to Hollywood’s obsession with a camera-ready appearance: Judy Garland was famously addicted to amphetamines by the time she finished filming The Wizard of Oz at age 17, all the better to keep her weight down.

Per just one story about it: “’Most of her teen and adult life, she had been on either Benzedrine or a diet or both,’ Garland’s third husband Sid Luft wrote in his memoir Judy and I: My Life With Judy Garland.”

These days, Ozeimpic is the rage, but if you peruse midcentury women’s magazines, as I recently did while researching period decor for a home renovation, you will come across celebrity-endorsement ads for Ayds “candies,” basically stimulants designed to encourage weight loss. I’m old enough to remember mothers of my friends using these diet aids growing up, but not the celeb endorsements of talent such as Yvonne De Carlo and Hedy Lamarr; I totally missed the mid-‘80s branding issue when people confused the weight loss candy with the similarly named AIDS.

Vintage ads on YouTube repeatedly stress that there are no stimulants in Ayds, and while that might have technically true when they were filmed, the diet reducing candy and others of its ilk contained phenylpropanolamine, a chemical that can be used to make speed that was removed from decongestants and other over the counter medicine due to the risk of stroke. In 1983, the maker of Dexatrim removed similar advertising claims about the safety of PPA, as the chemical is also known, in its diet aids. By 2000, the FDA asked drug manufacturers to stop using it for diet suppressants and decongestants.

Other practices have also been dubious to downright dangerous: Remember phen-fen? It was hugely popular as a weight loss aid a few decades ago, then recalled due to concerns it caused heart problems. And, as someone with a big scar on her leg from melanoma surgery, I wouldn’t recommend you pay heed to TikTokkers’ claims that sunscreen causes cancer or reality star Kristin Cavallari’s suggestion that maybe we don’t need it to guard against skin cancer. (Seriously, protect yourself better than I did as a teen!)

The average celeb-embraced health and beauty fad is relatively harmless, however. The casual observer might think some of the regimens are ridiculous – or that these well-compensated performers should spend their money elsewhere — but does it really matter that beauty-conscious A-listers are trying them? It’s not as if Hollywood itself doesn’t see the humor in some of these exercise and beauty fads, satirizing them in 1930s movies such as The Women and a Betty Boop short on through The Player, where the Hollywood execs retreat to Two Bunch Palms for a mud bath, then quite trendy.

The relatively low stakes of these treatments make it easier to gawk at them, or even consider trying them yourself – whether you take the Paoli local or drive the 405. Stars aren’t always like us, and that is part of the fascination.

More on Hollywood health and fitness:

This Business Insider article provides a broader overview: https://www.businessinsider.com/vintage-photos-exercise-trends-2019-1

Apple TV+’s Physical, starring Rose Byrne as a San Diego mom turned workout queen, channels the era well; it is period appropriate to the point I recall wearing a denim wrap-around skirt similar to the one Byrne’s frustrated Sheila dons in the series. Here’s a story I did about the audacity of Byrne’s frequently unlikable character for Variety.

Jay the dog

Lessons from my dog: Be true to yourself

DG Creations, Writing

I love my dog, but he continues to confound me. Every dog that I have had before him would insistently clamor for a morning walk and breakfast and expectantly wait for supper.

Not our Jay.

He’s simply not a morning dog and lets us know — if we are paying attention — that he is ready to go outside and do his business by throwing himself on the ground and loudly wriggling around. If that doesn’t get our attention, he comes upstairs and looks at me or my husband meaningfully. Similarly, when he is ready for a meal and one is not forthcoming, he licks his empty bowl until we get the idea.

There are no set behaviors or timetables with him. Food can remain untouched in his bowl for hours or be hoovered up immediately. Sometimes he’s in the mood for a long walk, but other times he will simply turn around mid-walk and head home. Again, unlike any other dog I’ve had.

Growing up, I used to frequently go on runs with our family dog, forging ahead even in inclement weather. (Sorry, Zeke!) Jay, whom we suspect to be part whippet, can really race down the street or the length of the local dog park when he wants to. But he simply cannot be cajoled into a sustained run around the neighborhood or a trail. Believe me, I’ve tried.

The biggest adjustment for me came early in our relationship: The rescue organization warned us that Jay prefers men over women, and that has definitely been the case in our house the past two years. I was the one that campaigned for another dog for years, but Jay prefers my husband.

My ego can mostly handle it, but there are times, like during my husband’s recent absence on a business trip, when I find myself again resorting to treat bribery to get Jay out of the door for a walk. (Jay logic: if I leave the house, I might miss the return of my preferred human.)

He’s also the sniffiest dog I’ve ever had, which can be vexing if I’m in a rush. But I counsel myself to be patient, and maybe even take a lesson from him: It’s okay to stop and sniff ALL the roses if you want to. Work can (usually) wait.

midmod style cabinets

Lessons in Remodeling: Be Grateful for What You Have

DG Creations, Writing

Grimy kitchen cabinets (and walls) aside, there is much to be grateful about our new house — including some of the changes the previous owners made.

Near as we can tell, they opened up the kitchen design — and it looks much better than an old photo floating around the internet from the listing prior to their purchase. Another thing we love: the wood cabinets they installed in the great room. Aside from being handsome, the cabinets evoke the mid-century modern origins of the house.

I was reminded of this when WordPress dredged up a long-forgotten post I wrote about a renovation of a mid-century modern house in Lodi nearly a decade ago. That house was in far worse shape when my in-laws purchased it — there was a hole in the roof and kiddie pool to catch the water, among other things. And in the process of turning the house around for new owners, they (or their partners, can’t remember) ended up stripping out some of the groovy interior design, from a retro lamp evoking the 1967 Debbie Reynolds movie “Divorce American Style” to a kitchen that evoked “The Brady Bunch.”

Our new house isn’t nearly as stuck in time, and there are many other things about it that we love. More on those later. In the meantime, I vow to appreciate all the good features of the house … even as I wrestle with home improvement projects before we move in.

Lessons in Remodeling: Tidiness vs. Cleanliness and the Joy of Peel and Stick Wallpaper

DG Creations, Lessons in Remodeling, Writing

Yes, I did buy Property Brothers peel and stick wallpaper for our new home, feeling kinda ridiculous as I made the purchase. But so far it is working better than expected as a short-term remedy for unexpectedly grody kitchen shelves.

It’s been a while, but I moved a lot in my younger days, first with my family, then as a young adult. And maybe I’ve forgotten the state of past domiciles, but I simply do not recall any being so repellently dirty when I moved into them.  

What were you thinking, I kept muttering to myself in an imaginary conversation with the former owners as I clean the kitchen cupboards, which looked acceptable from the exterior but were revealed to be stained and damaged on the interior when the house was emptied. What caused a fuchsia stain in so many drawers? Why was a rollout shelf inside the pantry door so black with grime? What were you, former owners, doing on that shelf? How could you think it was acceptable to leave it this way for yourselves, let alone others?

Mind you, I am not a persnickety housekeeper – just ask my husband – but these shelves have been a real eye opener. Especially mind-boggling: the wife of the splitting couple that resided in our new home bills herself as a tidiness expert. Can we attribute the mess to the husband and kids? Was it a big cause of tension in the house? Was this grime okay because it was behind cabinet drawers? I have so many questions that I will likely never get the answer to, but am now clear on one thing: tidiness and cleanliness are not necessarily linked together. I’ll take clutter over grimy cabinets any day.

I have scrubbed the repellent (to me) drawers with various cleaning products but some of the most persistent stains – and visible wear – remained, so I tried using non-adhesive shelf liner left over from our current home’s kitchen remodel to obscure problem areas. That didn’t do the trick. Next, I applied old-fashioned contact paper, wrestling with it as I retrained myself how to apply it. Not satisfied, I placed non-adhesive liner on top. When that still didn’t completely hide problem corners and damage, I moved on to peel and stick wallpaper that I spied at the home improvement story and once would have scoffed at using.

It has been, as the above narrative indicates, a learning process, and I have a long way to go before I become adept at applying any form of wallpaper or contact paper on shelves. My fix isn’t meant to last forever, but that’s okay – we just need it to cover the stains and wear until we can replace the shelves. Turns out papering over a problem isn’t always a bad thing.

George Takei, Joy Luck Club and the Asian World Film Fest

DG Creations, journalism, Movies, Variety, Writing

I’m back at Variety for most of the awards season (already well underway!).

Here are two stories I wrote connected to the Asian World Film Fest: One on the fest itself, which is adding more Asian American programming this year, and the other on George Takei, who’s getting a lifetime achievement award on closing night.

He’s a fan of the new Star Trek, by the way.

I rewatched Joy Luck Club, getting an anniversary screening at the event, and was somehow even more affected by it than when it debuted in 1993. That was unexpected.

And I learned much about the backstory, and exec producer Janet Yang’s efforts to get it made, during a chat with her.

Read more here.

 

Can women really have it all? That’s what ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ wants to know

ABC, DG Creations, Reviews, Screening of Life, TV, Writing

Patrick Dempsey and Ellen Pompeo in Only Mama Knows episode of Grey's Anatomy

You want to know why I still watch “Grey’s Anatomy”? Check out last week’s episode on demand.

In it, Shonda Rhimes and Co. pull off muscular – and affecting – drama around a plot point the showrunner planned at the series’ inception 11 years ago. That’s remarkable enough, but the episode titled “Only Mama Knows” also showed, in starker detail than before, the price a talented woman paid for her ambition and skill.

This has been the central conflict of the show: Can an ambitious woman have it all? What if she doesn’t want to be a mother? Or the men in her life can’t handle her talent or ambition?

Meredith Grey, the show’s title character, has struggled with this, and the shadow of her gifted mother, Ellis Grey, from the start. It’s a major flashpoint in her marriage to fellow surgeon Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey).

If this were a more conventional series, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) might be depicted as an anomaly. But Rhimes, a supremely talented showrunner and Dartmouth grad that also created “Scandal,” knows that smart and ambitious women aren’t as rare as unicorns.

From the start, doctor in training Meredith had an equally, if not more, ambitious pal in Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh), even less interested in conforming to gender stereotypes than Meredith.

kate-burton-ellis-greys-anatomy-portraitAnd there was, and still is, Bailey (Chandra Wilson), a stern taskmaster for newbie doctors, plus telling flashbacks of Ellis (Kate Burton, left) in her prime. Nominally softer female characters such as Izzie (Katherine Heigl) were shown to have overcome long odds in their quest to become a doctor.

And now, 11 episodes in, Meredith is coming to terms with the love child her late mother had with Richard (James Pickens Jr.) but Meredith somehow did not know existed. When this development was first revealed late last season, long-time viewers could be forgiven an eye roll.

I know I certainly did.

After all, another sister of Meredith (from her father’s subsequent marriage) had already come and gone. And episodes had grown slack with an attenuated send off to Oh’s Cristina. I was still watching, but less avidly.

“Grey’s Anatomy” had certainly tested my faith before, most strongly with the Denny ghost storyline, but last season’s malaise felt different, more attributable to the show’s age. Another sibling seemed like a tired rehash of the Lexi (Chyler Leigh) storyline.

kelly-mccreary-maggie-pierce-greys-anatomyThis sisterhood, however, is pricklier, and a lot trickier to pull off than that one. How could Meredith not know about her mother’s love child? Or Richard? Here, the show’s longevity pays off: The drama plays on viewers’ knowledge of Meredith’s relationship with her mother, before and after Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and the cloudiness of memory.

With this episode, Rhimes serves notice that she is not yet done examining the fallout from female ambition. “Only Mama Knows” is especially delicious coming so soon after the Alessandra Stanley’s reductive story about her “angry characters” in the New York Times. How many times are strong and ambitious women painted with that brush? Too many.

Ellis’ story is haunting, but Rhimes’ prognosis for contemporary women doesn’t seem nearly as bleak. For starters, she has created a mini-empire while raising children, and bristles when media press her on work-life balance.

And this week’s episode suggests that the long battle between Meredith and Derek over dueling career ambitions and parenthood isn’t as hopeless as it was starting to seem.

Maybe, just maybe, this fictional woman can really have it all.

This being a Shonda Rhimes concoction, I’m certainly not expecting a happily ever after ending for “Grey’s Anatomy,” however. The episode itself ends on a bittersweet note that I will not spoil here. You really should watch for yourself.

For more on Rhimes, read THR’s recent cover story , and its story about how this week’s remarkable episode came together. Mark Harris also wrote a compelling story about the “angry black woman” flap for Grantland.

And here’s my review for Rhimes-produced “How to Get Away With Murder,” which has yet to capture my fancy.

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