Erin O'Riordan writes smart, whimsical erotica. Her erotic romance novel trilogy, Pagan Spirits, is now available. With her husband, she also writes crime novels. Visit her home page at ko-fi.com.
January 30, 1969: The Beatles perform a 42-minute concert on the roof of their Apple Corporation record company building in London, as documented in the concert film Let It Be. It will be their last public performance together.
January 30, 1926: 29-year-old early Hollywood actress Barbara LaMarr dies of nephritis and pulmonary tuberculosis.
January 30, 2006: 55-year-old playwright Wendy Wasserstein dies of lymphoma.
January 30, 2021: 34-year-old electronic musician Sophie Xeon dies from injuries suffered from an accidental fall from a roof in Athens, Greece, where Sophie had climbed to look at the full moon.
It's been 13 years, but I have thoughts. I'll skip the characters I don't know from books I haven't read.
111. Frankenstein’s Monster (Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus). Fair, judging solely by the book. But in Maggie Gyllenhaal's forthcoming The Bride of Frankenstein retelling The Bride (2025), the Monster will be played by Christian Bale. Which bumps him up to #1. I apologize in advance for the feelings I will feel about that movie.
110. Uriah Heep (David Copperfield)
109. Casaubon (Middlemarch). If I remember Middlemarch, the main character's elderly husband looked like the philosopher John Locke, but I pictured him as Lost!John Locke. Not unhot.
108. Bradley Headstone (Our Mutual Friend)
107. Samuel Pickwick (Pickwick Papers)
106. Gussie Fink-Nottle (Right Ho, Jeeves)
105. Keith Talent (London Fields)
104. Jerry Cruncher (Tale of Two Cities). Domestic violence perpetrator; deserves to be at the bottom.
103. Hercule Poirot (The Mysterious Affair at Styles). What's wrong with Poirot? He's smart, he's Belgian, he keeps his moustache neat. In the movies he's Kenneth Branagh. What have we got against Poirot?
102. Ham Peggotty (David Copperfield)
101. Thorin Oakenshield (The Hobbit). This is just anti-dwarfish. In the movies he's Richard Armitage. That gay Brit is pretty hot. Adaptational attractiveness? Sure, but still, I think a lot of Tolkien men are ranked too low on this list.
100. Tracy Tupman (Pickwick Papers)
99. Julian Malory (Excellent Women)
98. C.J. Stryver (A Tale of Two Cities). This one is correct. Sydney Carton is the hot one at this law firm.
97. Charles Arrowby (The Sea, the Sea)
96. Dr. Watson (“A Study In Scarlet”). Wrong. Watson is a catch. He's a Victorian 10.
95. Willy Wonka (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Ma'am, he has unlimited access to chocolate. That should bump him into the Top 50, at least.
94. Jim Dixon (Lucky Jim)
93. Edward Ferrars (Sense and Sensibility). I'm sorry, but in what universe is Edward Ferrars less bangable than George Wickham? Carrie Frye, did you read these books all the way through to the end?
92. Colonel Brandon (Sense and Sensibility). EXCUSE ME?!?
68. Peter Pan (Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up). MA'AM HE IS A LITERAL CHILD. HE SHOULD NOT BE ON THIS LIST.
67. Long John Silver (Treasure Island)
66. King Lear (King Lear)
65. Reginald Jeeves (“Extricating Young Gussie”)
64. Henry Pulling (Travels with My Aunt)
63. Romeo (Romeo and Juliet). Another literal child from the reader's pov, but pretty bangable to his age-appropriate partner, I guess?
62. Tristram Shandy (The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman)
61. Winston Smith (Nineteen Eighty-Four)
60. Roland Michell (Possession)
59. Crow (Crow)
58. Brigadier Etienne Gerard (The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard)
57. Tertius Lydgate (Middlemarch). I don't remember who this is.
56. Lord Sebastian Flyte (Brideshead Revisited)
55. Henry Crawford (Mansfield Park)
54. Frederick Wentworth (Persuasion)
53. Edward Murdstone (David Copperfield)
52. Desmond Ragwort (Thus Was Adonis Murdered)
51. Captain Hook (Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up). I feel like he should be closer to 111. Unless we're talking about that one adaptation with Jason Isaacs. I like Jason Isaacs.
50. Charles Darnay (A Tale of Two Cities). That's pretty fair. Sure, he looks exactly, weirdly like Sydney Carton, but Charles Darnay has another golden retriever personality. Pleasant, I suppose, but not sexy. Plus he's probably sad about his dead son.
45. Legolas (The Lord of the Rings). Tolkien elves are hot.
44. Robin Hood (Piers Plowman)
43. Inspector Alan Grant (The Man in the Queue)
42. George Emerson (A Room with a View)
41. Alan Breck Stewart (Kidnapped)
40. Rockingham Napier (Excellent Women)
39. Mr. Neville (Hotel du Lac)
38. St. John Rivers (Jane Eyre). Colonialist. Not sexy.
37. Remus Lupin (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)
36. Lancelot (The Once and Future King)
35. Othello (Othello, The Moor of Venice). He definitely killed his wife. We saw him do it. Therefore, unbangable.
34. Tarzan/Lord Greystoke (Tarzan of the Apes). I know he was on my Disney "would" list, but let's be honest: The real sexiness is Tony Goldwyn's.
33. Severus Snape (Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone)
32. Aslan (The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe). Ma'am, he is a literal lion. He shouldn't be on this list. I'm pretty sure he's an asexual untame talking lion.
31. Sydney Carton (A Tale of Two Cities). Should be closer to #1 OBVIOUSLY.
30. John Willoughby (Sense and Sensibility). This much higher than Edward Ferrars? Really?
29. Thomas Cromwell (Wolf Hall)
28. Maxim de Winter (Rebecca). Um, didn't he kill his wife?
27. Simon Bakerloo (The Wolves of Willoughby Chase)
26. Sirius Black (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). Yeah. Or maybe a little higher, even. This is not an endorsement of J.K. Rowling, whose attempt to gaslight the Internet into ignoring Nazi anti-lgbtq+ violence makes me ill. If I were a billionaire writer with a huge platform, I simply would not use my huge platform to target a vulnerable minority.
25. Brian de Bois-Guilbert (Ivanhoe)
24. Adam Dalgliesh (Cover Her Face)
23. James Bond (Casino Royale). James Bond's behavior and personality are offputting. The only thing that ever makes James Bond sexy is when he's played by Daniel Craig.
22. James Steerforth (David Copperfield)
21. Tom Bombadil (The Lord of the Rings). Accurate. Tom Bombadil might not be a permanent keeper, but he does sound fun.
20. Edward Driffield (Cakes And Ale)
19. Sherlock Holmes (“A Study In Scarlet”). I never get very strong sexy vibes from book!Sherlock. Watson does more for me. But the sound of Benedict Cumberbatch's voice is an entirely different story. (Hours spent reading Johnlock fanfic? Who, me?)
18. Justin Alastair, Duke of Avon (These Old Shades)
17. Robert Frobisher (Cloud Atlas). That's about right. Sexy, but sad. Depraved bisexual trope, but sexy.
14. Algernon Moncrieff (The Importance of Being Earnest)
13. Randolph Henry Ash (Possession)
12. Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights). I have normal, proportional feelings about Heathcliff and about Ralph Fiennes playing him. I'm normal about Byronic antiheroes.
11. Maurice Bendrix (The End of the Affair)
10. Beorn (The Hobbit)
9. Orlando (Orlando: A Biography). Strongly agree. Ms. Carrie Frye and I are on the same page here.
8. Oliver Mellors (Lady Chatterley’s Lover). I get it.
7. Lord Peter Wimsey (Strong Poison)
6. Don Juan (Don Juan)
5. The Beast (“The Tiger’s Bride”)
4. Eugene Wrayburn (Our Mutual Friend)
The top three are fine. I feel like there should me more Shakespeare in here somewhere, though. I feel like the unsexy Shakespeare characters are covered better than the actually hot ones. Benedick, anyone? Dom Demetrius, afraid of yet intrigued by Helena's sub tendencies?
I don't know what this is. Maybe it was inspired by my Spotify Wrapped? I'm still not sure I'm using the word "pastiche" correctly. I pulled at a few different threads and I wove this, whatever it is.
I.
Robert Sheehan is outside my window again. Lucky for me, I'm on the 2nd floor, in my writer's studio above the corner bodega and he's standing on the sidewalk.
The window is open.
"Eileen!" he shouts up. "Come on, Eileen."
I leave my chair, push aside the pink-and-gray buffalo check curtain and peer down at him.
Putting his Irish accent on thick, he sings, "Believe me, if all those enduring young charms..."
"I'm dreaming," I say, interrupting his croon. "This is because I said you should play Kevin Rowland in a movie about Dexys Midnight Runners."
"Not a dream," he half-says, half-sings. "Don't you want to come down and go for a walk with me, just around the neighborhood?"
"No." The smell of hot tortilla chips warming in the bodega below makes my nostrils flare. I imagine the salt crystals on their flat surfaces. Craving the warmth and salt, I feel a hunger pang.
"Why not?"
"I've got things to do."
"Like what?"
I gesture at my laptop. "I have to write things. Legitimate things, fresh things, not just this Joyce Carol Oates pastiche."
"Eileen, you ain't telling the truth."
"Not my name," I remind him.
"Eileen, Erin, whatever. This is your day set aside for going for a walk with me and you know it."
I feel threatened. I close the window and go back to my laptop.
II.
I walk into the little Historic Downtown Irvington shop on Washington Street that used to be the ice cream shop that sold bubble tea. I see the new owner has rebranded it as a 1950s-themed nostalgia diner. The bubble tea options and anime keepsakes are gone, but the ice cream counter remains, as do about a dozen shiny, chrome milkshake blenders.
The brightly lit Wurlitzer jukebox in the corner plays “Drugstore Rock'N'Roll” by Janis Martin. The cheerful song paints the perfect picture of midcentury innocence.*
At one high table sits Edgar Allan Poe. His dark brown suit fits him well, although the foot that dangles from the long-legged chair has an untied shoelace. Catching me in his blue-eyed gaze, he says, “This was her favorite place.”
I’m confused. He died in the 1840s, over a century before the trope of the ‘50s malt shop emerged.
“I’m sorry?” I say. “ 'She’ is –?”
“Was,” he corrects me. “She was my Annabel Lee.”
I shake my head as I take the seat across from him. He offers me a sip of his milkshake, turning the straw toward me. I know I shouldn’t, but I indulge myself in a sweet sip of Poe’s chocolate malt.
I then continue, “This couldn’t have been her favorite place; that’s a line from that MC Lars song, 'Annabel Lee R.I.P.’”
He shrugs. Poe looks sad and beautiful but not morose. Despite his Gothic reputation, there’s nothing gloomy or goth about him. He’s every bit the Southern gentleman, gracious and effortlessly charming. I want to touch his dark hair where it starts to curl, just behind his ear.
I excuse myself to use the restroom. In the mirror, my eyes are less green and much more hazel than usual. Am I Christian Bale? No, I’m Augustus Landor. My clothes are careworn and I want to go back to my cottage.
Well, perhaps one more sip of Poe’s chocolate malt first.
*The song is about a drugstore. The former drugstore with the soda fountain, the one robbed by John Dillinger, is up the block a bit and on the other side of the street, across from the present-day library.
III.
John Legend, wearing a fashionable off-white suit, sits at his white piano, playing me a Christmas song in front of a roaring fire. Actually, he’s singing me “The Christmas Song.”
“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…”
“Happy birthday,” I blurt out.
“My birthday isn’t until the 28th. I’m an after-Christmas baby.”
He laughs, and I can’t tell whether he’s more surprised or amused.
Presently the fireplace-warmed air grew hotter. This was no winter wonderland. Were we in Jerusalem? Beyond John I spot a man with copious sandy-blond hair wearing black eyeliner and a keffiyeh.
“Judas,” I say upon the appearance of Tim Minchin.
“Jesus Christ,” he says, approaching John, seemingly moving in to kiss him. They lock eyes and I feel I’m witnessing something I’m not meant to see.
“…Superstar,” I mutter to myself as I turn away to give them their privacy. I muse aloud, “I can appreciate casting Alice Cooper as King Herod; I appreciate his showmanship. You know else might have made an interesting casting choice? Murray Head, the original album-Judas Superstar, coming back to play King Herod.”
We stand before his throne now: King Murray Head.
Blame W. Somerset Maugham. He had a birthday (January 25), I remembered that his Oriental Hotel suite is name-checked in “One Night in Bangkok,” and soon I’m detecting something wistful in Murray Head ballads that speaks to me as something other than merely an ‘80s kid.
“Now see what you’ve done?” Jesus Christ Superstar admonishes me. “You chose to lean fully into your 1980s nostalgia and now I’m going to be crucified.”
Is Tim Minchin Judas wearing lip gloss? And is it a bit smudged now?
“I’m not interested in matters of Jewish law tonight,” King Murray Head says in the crispest English accent you’ve heard since Ralph Fiennes. Offering me a doubtful smile, he adds, “My dear, would you care to join me in the Somerset Maugham Suite?”
“I thought you got your kicks above the waistline, sunshine,” the saucy Aussie chimes in.
King Murray Head shrugs. “I’m only human. We can’t all be Jesus Christ Superstar.”
I’m sexualizing that old man. I desire him carnally. But will he love me tomorrow? I'm guessing no, but that's ok. Nothing lasts forever.
IV.
I’m tucked snugly, quite comfortably into my 4-post bed, the curtains drawn around me, blissfully asleep in the warm and the dark. The sound of my name awakens me.
“Who’s there?” I ask. It had better not be Robert Sheehan.
“Charles Dickens,” comes the reply. This is what I get for reading Greg Jenner’s Dead Famous before bed.
But I know that distinctive voice. I part the bed curtains. “Dan Stevens?!” I ask incredulously, laying eyes on the extremely handsome English actor in the early morning light.
“It’s Charles Dickens,” Dan Stevens insists. He’s brought a friend.
“And John Forster,” adds Justin Edwards-in-Victorian-costume.
Accepting that these British thespians are in character as their The Man Who Invented Christmas counterparts, I ask, “Are you the Ghosts of Christmas Past? Am I dreaming?
“Neither,” says John/Justin, pulling a pie sprinkled with sugar seemingly out of nowhere.
That explained nothing. I thought back to Robert Sheehan telling me his creepy Oatesian visit wasn’t a dream. I then grew distracted by the state of my bedroom, suddenly filled with evergreen trees and boughs decorated with silver baubles, iridescent glass bubbles, and magical flickering candles. I smelled cinnamon and cloves; was someone mulling red wine in my bedroom?
It was beginning to look a lot like Victorian Christmas and smell like it too. My chamber suddenly possessed a long dining table on which there lay a roasted turkey, an enormous figgy pudding, and a rapidly-multiplying host of 19th-century holiday delicacies that would have made Ichabod Crane’s head explode.
“And you’re saying you two are not the Ghosts of Christmas Past?” I asked my guests for clarification.
Seating themselves at the table, they denied being ghosts a second time as they helped themselves to a portion of the mouth-watering feast.
“Tuck in,” said Charles/Dan.
I serve myself, but soon notice how the actors favor each other’s company, eat from each other’s plates, and feed one another. They’d constructed an elaborate ritual that allowed them to touch one another without social judgment.
“What is this?” I wonder out loud.
“You could think of it as recursion,” Charles/Dan says. “Each Christmas harks back to every other Christmas. This Christmas reminds you of childhood Christmases, which in turn retains elements of Victorian Christmas past, which in turn bears marks of earlier traditions, and so on.
“One might say,” remarks John/Justin, “that, in a sense, there has only ever been one Christmas and we return to it every year. We practice the myth of eternal return when we practice Christmas.” His thumb traces a line of cream that Charles/ Dan has smeared on his cheek, then eats the errant cream.
“I still don’t understand why I’m here,” I say. “Why was it necessary for me to be the Scrooge in this drama?”
“It isn’t,” Charles/Dan says flatly. “We merely need your bed.”
With that they abandon their feast and retire to my comfy bed, drawing the curtains behind them. I politely ignore their pleasured sighs as I slice into a steaming plum pie, but internally I wish they’d gotten a different room. I knew the Somerset Maugham Suite at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok had recently been vacated.
* * *
Author’s Note: Oliver Sacks wrote that Charles Dickens had a haunted mind, but didn’t explain that statement and then very sadly passed away. I began to understand it when I read about the railway accident he was involved in. I now believe that perhaps Dr. Sacks also meant that Dickens was haunted by his childhood poverty. This is depicted in The Man Who Invented Christmas and discussed in Dead Famous.
But then in this podcast, Helena Kelly spilled the absolute tea on Dickens and found out that he might have been lying about working in a boot blacking factory?! And he probably had syphilis, which he gave to Kate and the children - some of them may have died from it! - and maybe her sister too?! I don’t want to slut shame Charles Dickens, but I do think I understand what Dr. Sacks meant a lot more deeply now.
Christian Bale: The Inside Story of the Darkest Batman by Harrison Cheung
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Harrison Cheung, a Canadian who loves movies, was Christian Bale's unpaid personal assistant for many years. He does not have a very high opinion of Mr. Bale, whom he characterizes as incredibly self-centered. Disdainful of publicity to an extreme, Bale didn't even attend Heath Ledger's funeral because he didn't want to face the public, even though Bale and Ledger had become friends. (Some people get along with Christian Bale. Heath Ledger was one, and Russell Crowe is another.)
This book is full of short, interesting tidbits, but it also contains some strange errors and omissions. When mentioning Christian's interest in playing Mercutio in the Baz Luhrmann 'Romeo + Juliet' film of the '90s, Cheung and co-author Nicola Pittam mention that Bale lost the role to "an African-American." What an odd, vague way to describe Harold Perrineau, the actor who not only steals the movie with his impassioned portrayal of Romeo's volatile friend but is also well-known to American audiences through the TV shows 'Lost' and, now, 'Claws.' Do the authors really not know who Harold Perrineau is?
Another section refers to Colin Farrell as a British actor. Colin. Farrell. Is. Irish. Irish people are NOT British, and since Cheung lived with a British family (Christian, Louise, and David Bale - brother, sister, and father) for years, shouldn't he know this?
Cheung also has a low opinion of Winona Ryder, a former friend of Bale, his co-star in 'Little Women,' and the one who introduced Bale to his wife, Sandra (Sibi) Blazic. He describes the petite star as foul-mouthed and rude.
The whole narration has to be taken with a small grain of salt because Cheung obviously has a bone to pick with the Bale clan. They owe him thousands of dollars, if he genuinely never received a paycheck for working as Bale's personal and social media assistant from the earliest days of the Internet. Maybe he's exaggerating, or maybe he has cherry-picked the incidents that paint Christian Bale and his semi-con-artist father in the worst possible light. I don't know. It was still an interesting, relatively quick read.
I purchased this book at Barnes and Noble with my own funds as was not obligated in any way to review it.
In March, I read The Big Short, and over the past weekend, I finally watched the movie version on Netflix.
It’s a very good film. Although it's no secret I’m a big Christian Bale fan, and I really enjoyed his performance as Dr. Michael Burry, I thought Steve Carell’s performance was the best. (I did appreciate how Bale was framed so that the left side of his face was de-emphasized to help create the illusion that he had a glass eye, like the real Michael Burry. Good cinnamon tography.)
I didn’t realize it while I was watching it, but later when Tit Elingtin watched the movie at my suggestion, I noticed Tracy Letts in the cast list. As you may recall, I heard his name in “HardcoverBound 2,” first thought he was a female and probably quite feminist playwright, and then thought to associate him with the films Bug and August: Osage County.
Tracy Letts has a small role in The Big Short. It makes sense. He’s a theatre kid, writing plays and acting in movies. Also, his mother was the writer Billie Letts, who wrote Where the Heart Is. It was turned into a movie starring Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd. (I saw it in the movie theater with my friend Jamie in 2000.) Judd, who was in Bug, has thus appeared in films by two different Lettses.
I didn't read this.
But I digress. In trying to find out a little more about Letts’ acting career, I found upon a photo of Letts with Rebecca Hall and Michael C. Hall (no relation to one another). The Halls and Letts are involved in a film called Christine, scheduled to be released in October (next month).
I recently saw Michael C. Hall in Kill Your Darlings, the drama in which Daniel Radcliffe played Allen Ginsberg. I loved that movie. David Cross was adorable as Ginsberg’s poet father, Dane DeHaan* is dreamy even though Lucien Carr was a shit boyfriend to Allen (repressed much?), and Radcliffe is now my second-favorite movie Ginsberg after James Franco. I’ll always have a special place in my heart for the Norman Reedus/Keifer Sutherland/Courtney Love film Beat, with my sweet sweet baby Kyle Secor as David Kammerer, Carr’s creepy stalker. The Kammerer character in KYD is much better written and sympathetic, and Hall does an excellent job playing him.
Rebecca Hall, of course, played the long-suffering wife of Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) in The Prestige. It’s one of my favorite movies, and I’m not the only fan. The Simpsons had its season premiere this past weekend. Mr. Burns re-instated a vaudeville-like stage show like he remembered from his childhood, including a magic act performed by twins Sherri and Terri that referenced The Prestige.
I DID read Christopher Priest's novel - after I saw the movie
I’ve also been watching Rebecca Hall as Edwardian narcissist Sylvia Tietjens, opposite Benedict Cumberbatch, in Parade’s End. She will play the title character in Christine.
Sylvia Tietjens isn’t a very sympathetic character. One tends to feel more sympathy for husband Christopher, who is desperately in love with spunky suffragist Ms. Valentine Wannop (Adelaide Clemens, a young Australian who played Myrtle Wilson’s sister in The Great Gatsby), but too old-fashioned to divorce Sylvia. I'm on episode 2 of the 4-part miniseries, and so far the most scandalous thing Christopher and Valentine have done is get lost in the fog and stay out together all night…sitting next to each other. Just sitting, physical contact at an absolute minimum. It’s like the opposite of Jane Eyre. Where Edward Fairfax Rochester was not concerned enough about pursuing the woman he loved while in a bad marriage, Christopher Tietjens was probably too concerned. Lots of unresolved longing and surreptitious eye contact ensue.
Christine Chubbuck, conversely, is a very sympathetic character. Life dealt her a hand so much worse than she deserved. Her severe depression cost her her life. Live on television. We can't see the actual footage, thank Something, but we will see a dramatized version.
*I saw him in the trailer for Tulip Fever while waiting for Love and Friendship (a Jane Austen adaptation) to start in the movie theater. I want to see that. Christine might be too sad, even though I'm sure Rebecca Hall's acting will be great. Let's see Tulip Fever instead. As of this writing, its release is planned for February 2017.
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I read this book because I was listening to public radio on my way home from work one evening and heard an interview with the director of the movie based on it. The director talked about some of the real people Lewis wrote about.
The "character" who stood out in my mind was Michael Burry, who was played in the film by Christian Bale. I have a longstanding interest in Christian Bale. Bale had to learn to play heavy-metal drums to take on the character, the director said, because Burry has some distinctive mannerisms and habits. He's on the autism spectrum, with the characteristics typical of Asperger's.
I thought this sounded interesting enough that I wanted to read the book before I saw the movie. I couldn't understand all of Lewis's more technical points about the bond market. This made the first chapters of the book slow reading for me. I think I caught the gist of it, though: Many, if not most, of the people on Wall Street - less so in the stock market, more so in the bond market - have no idea what products they're actually selling. This was particularly true in the 2000s, before the awful housing market collapse of 2007-2008. But, Lewis would have us know, there hasn't been any real effort to fix the underlying problems.
Some of Lewis's conclusions seem to support those of Barbara Ehrenreich in her book Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. In my review (here) of that book, I wrote, "The thesis of Bright-Sided is the U.S. residents tend, as a people, to subscribe to an optimistic outlook on life that isn’t so much based in fact as it is in wishful thinking." A few individuals, such as Burry, foresaw that the U.S. subprime mortgage market could collapse, and they made their investors tremendous sums of money when it did. The majority, however, refused to believe that the collapse could ever happen in the way that it did. The bond market put more faith in itself and its regulators than either deserved.
The U.S. financial market was, and remains, fraught with what Lewis refers to as "bombs." They're not the exact same subprime mortgage bombs, since banking regulations have tightened around that particular market. However, these large financial institutions remain able to create markets out of thin air and trade on derivatives and other financial products so arcane, only tiny numbers of people who, like Mike Burry, possess unusual skill sets can actually understand them and their risks.
By the way, Burry never actually plays the drums in the book. He does take up the guitar and develop a passion to learn everything about guitars. Maybe the screenwriter had to change guitars to drums because that was easier to teach a non-musical actor. (I think it's fair to call Christian Bale non-musical, although we all know he did, in fact, sing and dance in the musical Newsies. But that was 20 years ago.)
I checked this book out from my local public library and was not obligated in any way to review it.
Now that I've finished Gone Girl, my current reads are:
I'm about 70 pages into Great by Sara Benincasa. It's a contemporary YA retelling of The Great Gatsby with some of the characters' genders reversed; Nick and Jay are now Naomi and Jacinta. The writing style isn't super-literary, and in spots it borders on the ridiculous, but I'm still interested in how the tale proceeds. I started reading this at my cousin's birthday party for her kids the other night, when my husband and the other men were engaged in watching an incredibly stupid MTV show in the bar. (The party took place at a bowling alley my cousin had rented for the occasion.)
This is a book I got free from Amazon Vine. Another Vine pick I'm about a third of the way through:
So it's a silly PNR about a weretiger princess who finds herself attracted to a warrior vampire. So what? It's fun, and I love big cat shapeshifter stories. In my mind I'm picturing Russell, the vampire, as Christian Bale. Russell is supposed to be an American - well, Christian Bale is now a naturalized American. I think they kicked him out of the U.K. because he was born without a British Charm Unit.
In the car on my hour-long commute to the Corporate Marketing Day Job, I'm 11 of 15 discs through Dan Brown'sDeception Point. I borrowed it from the library. I've begun mentally casting the movie:
Michael Tolland - George Clooney
Corky Marlinson - Jeffrey Wright (my beloved Beetee from the Hunger Games film series)
Wailee Ming - Ken Leung
I don't have strong feelings about who should play Rachel Sexton. Any Generic White Girl will do. I can't stop thinking of Gabrielle as Halle Berry because it's written right into the text that she resembles the actress.
The book I sometimes read on my lunch hour at work is Cover Him With Darkness by Janine Ashbless. I got the paperback from Cleis Press in exchange for an honest review.
It encompasses one of my current obsessions - angel sex, although of the hetero variety in this case - and one of my deep-seated, ongoing obsessions - That Yugoslavia! Thing. It takes place in Montenegro, partially. Also, the writing is fantastically good.
You may remember Yugoslavia! from previous installments of Erin's Dream Diary:
Because my uterus refuses to play nice, like my other bodily organs do, I awoke to pain and blood. Despite, or perhaps because of, the hormonal flux going on beneath my skin, I vividly remember what I'd been dreaming before my internal Nagini decided to shed her skin:
My dad's dad was still alive. He and my Irish Granny owned a restaurant, where my parents and I both worked. I was 19 years old. My project of the morning was making a pot of soup, the base of which included the concentrated juice of pomegranates.
This lovely photo, which I found on Tumblr during an idle moment yesterday, may have been responsible for my dreaming of pomegranates.
Here I must mention that in my dream, the Earth was under the control of the Empire - the Darth Vader empire from the Star Wars series. We all know that the events of Star Wars happened a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. But maybe I was dreaming about Star Wars because I am a nerd drove through fog the other day, and when I drive through fog, I like to pretend I'm in Cloud City. Yeah, I grew up in the '80s.
The time of year is late April/early May - the time of Beltane - in my dream. I kept thinking I wanted to ride my bike into the woods to make my prayers and sacrifices to the God and Goddess. But I had to wait to go to the temple of the woods, because a storm trooper came into the restaurant.
Eve Rinaldi via Wikimedia Commons
FYI, the reference to Beltane might have come about because I've reblogged a few Howl's Moving Castle posts on Tumblr in the past few days. I love Howl and Sophie as a couple, and as you may recall, they met on Beltane/May Day. It's their anniversary. Yesterday was my maternal grandparents' wedding anniversary, although both are deceased, and they had gotten married on the same day as my grandfather's parents.
My mother's father's parents on their wedding day, circa 1915. That day was a January 24th.
But I digress. The storm trooper came in, and I felt very threatened and intimidated by his presence. I considered the fact that he might kill me and my family. But he took off his helmet, and he was a regular guy. He looked just like Ben Affleck.
I told you I would get attached to Nick Dunne.
So the storm trooper, whose name I must have known in the dream but cannot now remember - we'll just call him Ben - flirted with me. I let him come upstairs to my bedroom, to the family living quarters above the restaurant. Somehow I managed to sneak him past my parents and grandparents, even though all four of them were there.
We kissed. I took my clothes off. He took off his uniform. We had sex. For me, it was the first time.
Currently obsessed with the song "First Time" by Ghost Beach, an indie rock band named after a Goosebumps book
Several weeks later, when I realized my period was late, I knew I was pregnant. I surreptitiously bought a pregnancy test and sneaked off to the woods, to the very place where I would have made my obeisance to the God and Goddess on Beltane, to take the test. My family found out shortly after that. I don't know how - I didn't volunteer that information. Soon I found myself hauled in to the Empire's nearest outpost. The Empire had some kind of interest in children who had been conceived on Beltane, and they considered my offspring to be their property. I would be held as a prisoner until I gave birth to my daughter, then released back to my family. I was never to expect to see my daughter again. It was bad, but not as bad as it could have been. Ben was allowed to visit me and bring me things. On his home planet, he was also a witch. He showed me a book of the Craft from his home world that told him which roots to dig up and give me for morning sickness. Fortunately, they also grew on Earth, but he could only dig them up by the light of the full moon, and he had to chew them up for me. (This is oddly sweet - the father having to chew up the roots that will benefit his child in utero.) In actuality, the time I had to live without seeing my daughter was only a few months, because the Empire was defeated and the troops got to go home. I know I got my child back, but I don't know whether Ben stayed on Earth, if I decided to take the baby to his home planet, or if we parted ways. That is how my hormone-addled subconscious mind works.
Remember the time I couldn't stop reading an RPF - real person fiction - called Shameless by Helens? (I mentioned it in this blog post; you can read the fic here. Do. It's sooo gooood.)
It has Christian Bale and Sean Bean. Sean Bean doesn't die in this one, but he does have a lot of sadomasochistic same-sex sex. And it is glorious.
It's been many and many a year since I actually wrote an RPF - since my college days, I reckon. These days I prefer to work with fictional characters, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy an occasional RPF read.
This past week a series of fortunate events occurred. The 2015 Peoples' Choice Awards were held on Wednesday, January 7th, One of the winners was my latest celebrity crush, Misha Collins, for playing Castiel on Supernatural.
So on my Tumblr blog Something Kitten This Way Comes on Thursday, I blogged a few PCA photos. It's a book blog with many, many diversions, and one of those diversions is that I sometimes blog red carpet photos for actors I particularly like - the Hunger Games cast and whatnot.
On Friday, I blogged nothing but Misha Collins all day, just because he is pretty. A lot of what I reblogged came from the archives of my fellow Tumblrer Alexandra on her blog Your Bittersweet Company. Including this:
And that graphic links to this, a Misha Collins/Jensen Ackles RPF. (They have a ship name, and it is Cockles.) I couldn't NOT read it. I simply couldn't. The author goes by NamiChan89, and the artist of the lovely banner is petite_madame. There are 8 chapters and an epilogue, all awesome. It's not plotless porn.
I mean, it's really sad at first. Fictional-Jensen's brother and very-pregnant sister-in-law are killed by a drunk driver, but his infant nephew survives the crash. Since their other sister is still in college and they can't stomach the thought of the little boy being raised in foster care, Jensen has to take care of the little boy, named Andrew or A.J. for short. He gets paternity leave from his engineering job, but he's a little depressed after the trauma of losing his brother. The sister lives too far away to be much of a support system for him, and AJ is fussy. Uncle and nephew get very little sleep at first.
Fictional Misha is their new neighbor across the hall. Jensen and Misha flirt a little right from the first day they meet. It's casual, though. Fictional Jared Padalecki shows up as AJ's pediatrician, which is very cute.
In Chapter 2, Misha seems to know something about caring for a baby, but Jensen doesn't dare ask him why that is. Misha lives alone, so no wife or children appear to be in the picture.
Chapter 3 has the sister - Mackenzie - babysitting AJ so Jensen and Misha can go to dinner and a movie. It's a date that Jensen somewhat ruins at the end by blurting out that it is not a date.
Chapter 4 is very sweet. Jensen has made himself sick by drinking milk that was a little spoiled. While he's recovering, Misha takes care of him and AJ. They both seem to accept that Misha will help take care of the baby, but the two adults are just friends.
In Chapter 5, with his paternity leave coming to an end, Jensen is complaining to Misha that it's hard to find a good babysitter. In the midst of explaining why he doesn't feel comfortable hiring the potential nannies who seem a little too flirty, Jensen very clearly states that he's gay. Misha doesn't flinch, but he's not forthcoming with any more clues about his own orientation, either. Not surprisingly, Misha ends up taking the 2-day-a-week nanny job, since he mostly works from home. (He's a translator.) Mackenzie, meanwhile, gives her brother the number of a definitely-gay potential date named Tom, since Jensen's flirtation with Misha doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
Chapter 6 is mostly dates that Jensen goes on with Tom. Their relationship is progressing, even if Jensen can't seem to get past his seemingly-hopeless crush on his hot neighbor/babysitter. At the end of the chapter, Misha interrupts their date calling Jensen and telling him to meet him at the children's hospital. Uh oh.
Chapter 7 returns to the melancholy. AJ is fine, but Misha narrates the sad story of how he came to be experienced with caring for babies. He was married, and he had a baby girl. While he and his wife were working on a humanitarian project in Africa, their daughter got sick, and she died. Misha and his wife couldn't stop arguing after that, and they got divorced. Not only is the story sad, but now Jensen's romantic hopes are crushed, because now he believed Misha is a straight guy. At the end of the chapter, Misha is contemplating taking a job in Russia.
In Chapter 8 - well, we can all see where this is going. Jensen breaks down and admits to Jared he's been in love with Misha for the past 8 months (because every chapter is a month). Jensen breaks up with Tom, and Tom admits he saw it coming, because clearly Jensen is smitten with his babysitter. Faced with losing Misha forever, Jensen goes across the hall and begs Misha not to take the job in Moscow, and they both admit to having feelings for each other. Then they kiss. That night, after AJ has been put to bed, they go to Jensen's bed together.
In the epilogue, a 15-year-old AJ - now just going by Andy - doesn't quite know how to tell his two obnoxiously-in-love dads that he, Andy, has a crush on a girl. He comes out to them as straight.
And it is adorable.
Sometimes you just have to say "fuck reality," suspend disbelief, and enjoy a romantic drama.
I decided to watch the movie Wall Street. (Wikipedia link, in case you want to read more about it.) If you recall the film, it was directed by Oliver Stone and stars Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas as, respectively, a young stockbroker and his ruthless corporate mentor. It came out in 1987 and is considered emblematic of 1980s corporate culture in the popular imagination.
Well, that's the movie I thought I was going to watch. What Wall Street actually turned out to be was a film about a young stockbroker played by Madeleine Stowe.
Creative Commons image by Luke H. Gordon
In my mind, the American actress's most significant role was playing Cora Munro in the 1992 adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans. But that is because I am an American literature geek.
Vintage German edition of Last of the Mohicans. Public domain
Anyway, my nocturnal dream-version of Wall Street took place entirely in this character's home. It centered entirely on her interactions with a new acquaintance, an 18-year-old aspiring filmmaker played by Christian Bale. It was their intention to have sex in a wide variety of positions and videotape their enjoyment from a variety of angles for the benefit of his filmmaking experience.
But not in a creepy way, like Patrick Bateman and the prostitutes in American Psycho (and "This Must Be the Place"). The movie I was watching wasn't porn, it was a major Hollywood studio film with the highest production values and an emphasis on character development and storytelling.
I'm not judging you if you watch porn. I do think as consumers we should all choose entertainment that was made in a non-exploitative way with the enthusiastic consent of all the age-18+ performers, Zach and Miri Make a Porno-style. (Funny, sweet film, BTW. I recommend it, if you haven't seen it.)
...I think I dreamed this because I mentioned Naveen Andrews in yesterday's The Casual Vacancy post, and the British actor was in the film Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love.
In real life, Christian Bale had not yet reached the age of 18 in 1987, when the real Wall Street came out. Two years older than me, he was a 12-year-old at the time and making his feature film debut in Empire of the Sun, playing a fictionalized version of author J.G. Ballard. But in my dream I was crystal-clear on the fact that he was an 18-year-old grown adult.
I woke up from this most unusual dream, fell asleep again, and dreamed that:
a) I found a bullhorn, with which I intended to lead the neighborhood in a sing-along of the B-52s song "Love Shack," and
Occasionally, I see a movie that sends me running to read the book it was based on. The Thin Red Line's film adaptation inspired me to read James Jones' entire Wartime Trilogy, which occupied much of my reading time in 2012. When I saw The Prestige, not only did I develop my Titanic-sized crush on Christian Bale, but I was also so intrigued by the story, I read Christopher Priest's novel.
So it was with Vampire Academy. I saw the movie on Valentine's Day (review here) and couldn't get it out of my head. Earlier this week, after a session of ghostwriting at my local library, I sauntered over to the YA section and checked out the first Vampire Academy novel by Richelle Mead.
As I expected, I liked the book even better than the movie. It explained some things that weren't clear, or that I got wrong, when I watched the movie. I thought Rose's mother was a human, for one thing, but it turns out her mom's a famous guardian and a Dhampir. I didn't know the child of a Dhampir mother and a vampire (Moroi, specifically) father was also a Dhampir. This explains Rose's mother's aloofness.
I was slightly less horrified by the dead and wounded animals when I was reading about them than when I saw them on screen. Sometimes it's the visual that really gets you. I know some people were just the opposite on this, but when I read about Rue's death in The Hunger Games, it didn't affect me on such a gut level as when I saw the scene acted out by the beautiful young Amandla Stenberg.
On the other hand, some parts of this book that were delightful to see on film were even more delightful to read. Christian and Lissa's kiss, for example. Richelle Mead's writing shines most when she's writing about a strong passion, whether it's lust, anger, or Lissa's healing powers.
What I hoped would be explained better in the book than it was in the movie - Lissa's Spirit power, and elemental magic in general - wasn't really explored as much as I'd hoped. True, as the first book in the series, Vampire Academy had to pack in a lot of exposition, and perhaps Mead picks up the theme more in later novels.
I find the "fifth element" concept a little fascinating. As a word nerd, I think it's cool that the word "quintessential" literally means "of the fifth element." But what is the fifth element, exactly? What is Lissa's quintessence?
I think I'll read on in this series. I'm curious to know whether Rose ends up with Dimitri or whether she meets someone her own age.
I AM still reading Middlemarch, but very slowly, as it deserves to be read. It is not exciting book. Even though Jane Eyre told me I would like it if I liked Jane Eyre, I am almost 200 pages in and I am not finding this to be the case.
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. I saw the movie on Valentine's Day (
, in front of me, I've picked up 
