The Sunday Times With Sophie

It might seem to you that every little thing Canada does is magic in my eyes, but there are things that I miss about the States. (Apart from my family & friends & Philadelphia. They go without saying, but I'll say it anyway: I miss you so much!) And it's true, I'm still in the honeymoon phase in my relationship with our friendly neighbors to the North. But I'll tell you right now that I miss the weekend issues of The New York Times like nobody's business.

I miss their inky smell, I miss getting Arts & Leisure and Book Review and Travel on Saturdays and waiting for the Styles & Week in Review to arrive on Sundays so I can read all the news I missed by being too busy during the week and flip immediately to the Vows section so I can read the wedding write-ups first thing. I miss having all the sections spread all over the dining table and tracking down the Magazine at the bottom of some newspapery pile in my parents' bedroom.

So in the spirit of loving & missing the Times, here's a little round up of my favourite articles from today's paper. Enjoy.
Sunday, November 19, 2000 07:08 p.m.

E.L. Konigsberg Rocks My (Literary) Socks
E.L. Konigsberg's new book, Silent To the Bone is reviewed in this week's NYT Book Review. If you've only read her most famous book, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, (and even if you haven't), I would encourage you to read (to yourself, to a loved one, to any neat-o kids you know) some of her other books. My favourites are A Proud Taste for Scarlet And Miniver, Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, and Me, Elizabeth, and Up From Jericho Tel. Konigsberg has great prose style and never, ever panders to her audience. She's a children's lit hero of mine.
Sunday, November 19, 2000 07:04 p.m.

Smarmy McFlab and Catherine Zeta-Jones Married
Big, swanky ceremony, arrival in a limousine, hors d'oeuvre for the paparazzi, blah blah matrimonycakes. My only question is this: Do the now-completed nuptials of Mr. & Mrs. Douglas mean that I won't be subjected to endless, breathless commentary and speculation about them and their tiny, chin-dimpled progeny for the next couple of months? Because it's enough, already. In fact, it was enough well before now. And am I the only one grossed-out by this comment by Father McFlab: "I'd marry [Zeta-Jones] myself, but my wife won't let me." Ewwwwwww! I'm all for inter-generational family harmony, but that is just nasty. You know old Kirk doesn't mean it in that cute, grandfatherly way, either - he means it in a leering, dirty old man way. Yuck.
Sunday, November 19, 2000 07:01 p.m.

Robot Wars Comes to America!
Apparently, an Americanized version of the BBC's excellent and funny Robot Wars is Comedy Central's biggest hit, after South Park. Cool. If you want to see the entire article on one page, click "Print This Article" at the bottom of the page.
Sunday, November 19, 2000 06:50 p.m.

Daniel Handler Diaries!
The representative of the elusive Lemony Snicket had a one-week personal writing engagement with Slate.com. He writes about taking photos at Coney Island, about writing the 6th instalment in the Series of Unfortunate Events, and some other fun stuff. Thanks to starry for this one.
Friday, November 17, 2000 03:31 p.m.

Did you know that Canadian ginger ale is spicier and more gingery than regular ginger ale? It is. They kick it old skool style up here, man. And I like it.
Friday, November 17, 2000 03:30 p.m.

A Hard Day's Night Re-release
One of the greatest Rock N Roll movies ever made is being re-released on December 1. I don't know why. Who am I to question something this cool? So far it looks like Richard Lester's masterpiece (aside from The Knack...And How to Get It) is only coming to New York and Los Angeles, but I saw a poster for it at The Varsity theatre last weekend, so I'm holding out hope that it could wend its way to Philadelphia in time for me to go with my entire family of Beatlemaniacs. And maybe, just maybe, our giddy high spirits would convince my Mom into coming with us!
Thursday, November 16, 2000 08:24 a.m.

It's not just the US election madness that makes me glad I'm living in Toronto. To be fair, Canada is having its own election madness right now, as well, but at least they'll know who their Prime Minister is at the end of November 27. But it's not just politics that makes me glad to be a long-term visitor to this fine nation. It's the advertising. Canadian advertising is at least 25% more entertaining than American advertising. I have no studies to prove it, but my own, highly suspect personal poll of myself and my American suitemate indicates that we laugh significantly more at Canadian advertisements like this PSA for breast self-exams. And there are two Molson Ex ads that just crack me up.

And let's not forget the cell phone service ads featuring a snow-white duck boogying down to "Disco Duck"! (Really, it's way funnier than it sounds.) What a country!
Thursday, November 16, 2000 08:15 a.m.

Young & Insane
Contrary to even the most conservative estimates, I'm just 49% insane. Too bad I can't join Vaughan in the upper echelons of bizarreness.
Thursday, November 16, 2000 08:14 a.m.

Oops...She Won't Do It At All
So Britney Spears is pulling out of her possible Buffy appearance due to scheduling conflicts. And you know what? That's fine with me. Of all the floozyish, midriff-baring, middling-talent teen songbirds, Britney's by far my favourite, but I like to keep these media separate. Plus, Britney's too much of a recognizeable star for it to be believable that the Scooby Gang wouldn't recognize her. And if she came on the show as herself it would be a total disaster. So, all's well that ends in scheduling conflicts.
Wednesday, November 15, 2000 07:25 p.m.

Art of the Mix
I love mix tapes. I love to make them, I love to receive them, I love to talk about them, write liner notes for them, and obsess over them. I’m a talky kind of girl, and words are my friends, but sometimes you’ve got to let Ric Ocasek or Snoop Dogg or Blossom Dearie or Belinda Carlisle do the talking for you.

One of my favourite things about mixes is that moment when you hear a song by an artist you’ve never heard of before and it something inside you clicks into place. At that moment, you know you’ve found a band that will be important to you for a good, long while. (Or maybe it’s just one song. I’ll probably never listen to a Tommy Roe album in its entirety, but I can’t get enough of “Sweet Pea”. ) One such band that I look forward to loving for years to come is Tindersticks, who appear on the most recent mix to come my way, and who are now my favourite downloadable on Napster. Their official site, linked above has an excellent discography and lovely photos of the band. For a more fan-oriented history of the band, check out this page. Look for the amusing typo – the author says that the Tindersticks released a soundtrack for the “Claire Danes movie ‘Nanette et Boni’”. I think he means Claire Denis. Hey, it’s an honest mistake!
Wednesday, November 15, 2000 08:34 a.m.

Parade of DiaryLand Loves
Well, thanks to Andrea, I am thoroughly obsessed with Tales From the Laptop, badjuju's chronicle of her life as a stripper in Glasgow. Once you've got one DiaryLand love, you're on a slippery slope towards more bookmarks than you know what to do with and frenzied attempts to keep up with all the updates. I know it's all too much for me, but I urge you to check out the very involving and well-written grim, outbox, volcanic, and WriterGirl. All wonderful. All worth far more of my leisure reading time than I can afford right now.
Wednesday, November 15, 2000 08:25 a.m.

And They're Off!
The Oscar race has already begun. And Inside's got a handy little feature, The Inside Line, which will provide extra handicapping information to those of us who like to speculate on these things. Apparently, long blonde hair is a distinct disadvantage to Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress nominees. No word on how flowing tresses affect an actor's chances.
Tuesday, November 14, 2000 09:51 a.m.

Technical Difficulties Resolved!

I had lost a bit of NedStat code when I was tinkering with links a little bit ago. So I replaced it. All better! Let me tell you, it was getting tiresome to look at the endless stream of bizarro google searches people had used to stumble into kerplink. It was interesting at the beginning to see that a search for, say, "Serge Gainsbourg autograph" or "Morcheeba album covers" had yielded this URL, but that damn "blythe dolls" search had been up there for over a week! Yeesh.
Tuesday, November 14, 2000 09:47 a.m.

Scrubbles Housewarming Party
I missed Scrubbles, big-time, last week. Be sure to visit Matt at his brand spankin' new, easy-to-remember domain! Now with new & swanky(er) graphics! Whee!
Monday, November 13, 2000 08:34 a.m.

Wherever You Are
While I'm updating links, please take note of the addition of addition of Vaughan's lovely and always interesting Wherever You Are to the sidebar. He's chock full of quality links and thoughtful commentary. And really, can you ask for more than that? I thought not.
Monday, November 13, 2000 08:33 a.m.

Lemony Snicket
Mr. Snicket is the very secretive author of a number of books about the Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, who face a Series of Unfortunate Events, and are constantly pursued by their dreadful uncle, Count Olaf, who lusts after their considerable fortune. Will the Baudelaires ever be adopted by some nice relatives? Only Mr. Snicket can say. Unfortunately, due to last-minute delays, Mr. Snicket will have to send his representative, Daniel Handler, to, um, represent him at a number of readings across North America. Mr. Handler will be reading from Mr. Snicket's latest oeuvre, The Austere Academy, at Chapters Runnymede on Tuesday at 5pm. I downloaded the fun screensaver and the mp3 of Stephin Merritt's song about Count Olaf, which advises, "when you see Count Olaf, count to zero, then scream and run away!" If you can bear to learn more about the horrors that regularly befall the Baudelaire orphans, I heartily recommend that you do the same.
Monday, November 13, 2000 08:32 a.m.

T-Rex Bonanz- oh, never mind.
The Printmaker and I went to see the sublime sap-fest Billy Elliott (tissue count: 5, which may be an all-time high, excluding Sophie's Choice, which always messes up the curve) this weekend, and now I'm all hooked on the supreme glam-ness of T-Rex. So I've got my mp3s of "Get It On", "I Love To Boogie", and "Cosmic Dancer" cued up and I'm ready to kick out the jams of glamour. But what's this I find? In his later years, Marc Bolan wrote songs about hobbits! Oh, the disillusionment! If you click on his glowing head at the page linked above, you can read some of the drivel he felt compelled to write down. Sigh. Why did he have to turn to a life of faux-mythology and, well, crap, before kicking the bucket? Yuck.
Monday, November 13, 2000 08:31 a.m.