Fantastic Metropolis

2003 was a dreadful year for me and I’m glad it’s almost over. Not to bore you, but I’m in pain. I have been an impatient reader, critical about almost everything I’ve been subjected to in the name of entertainment. Reflecting my low spirits and bad attitude, my list is more a list of “Reasons to Go On Living When You Feel Like Shit” than a true inventory of the year’s bests, but I’ll stop complaining now, and stick to more upbeat subtitles.

Best Food For Low-Carbists

1) Not really ice cream, but Tofutti brand “Hooray!” soy bars. The company’s slogan is “Parve Never Tasted so Good” and I quite agree. Neither meat nor milk, these vanilla “ice cream” bars are enrobed in a rich dark chocolate, and at under $3.00 for a six-pack, my favorite low-carb snack. Available at Trader Joe’s.

2) Ashland Fudge Co. Sugar-free Chocolate. About $14.00 a pound plus shipping, but one of the better tasting sugar-free chocolates I’ve tasted. Yummy hazelnut and caramel clusters; peanut butter cups. Serious almond bark. From a candy store in Ashland, Oregon that also makes fairly amazing candied apples, not that I can eat them, what with my teeth the way they are.

3) Best candy worth going off Atkins for: Enstrom’s Almond Toffee. I blame my sister for getting me hooked. This stuff is so good you might have to lick the inside of the box. Or am I the only one who does that?

Best Treatments for Back Pain

1) Percodan

2) Physical Therapy

3) ThermaCare heat compresses

Best Story Collection

1) I knew Pamela Painter from her writing manual What If? but The Long and the Short of It, published by Carnegie Mellon University, February 1999, has made me an appreciative fan of her short fiction. Her stories are spare, real, and moving portraits of families in crisis. Some of them are very short. All read as if she’s been there. These must be true stories; I believe every word.

2) I’ve signed up to take a writing class from Ehud Havazelet and in preparation, I read his collection, Like Never Before from Farrar Straus & Giroux, September 1998.

Wow.

These interconnected stories examine the members of one traumatized family and explore the many ways we fail one another. The writing is beautiful and evocative. Though a mainstream collection, the book ends with a powerful ghost story.

Best Movies

1) Rarely do I see a movie without being able to think of at least one bad thing to say about it. Bubba Ho-tep is an exception. It’s a delightful, funny, original film with great performances by Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis as JFK. Directed by Don Coscarelli; based on Joe R. Lansdale’s story. I might have to buy it once it’s released on video, just to see the hieroglyphics scroll by again.

2) The Women was released in 1939; one can only wish to have been born during a time when gossipy bitches like the women in this film walked the earth. I suspect The Women might be a post-feminist near-masterpiece. The plot is dumb, sexist, racist, and the final scene—where Norma Shearer widens her eyes and dashes toward love, is hysterically dated. If you can get over those flaws, and I realize, with all seriousness, that’s a lot to ask, you’ll come out with an appreciation for women who paint their nails Jungle Red before they claw you.

The screenplay, adapted from Clare Boothe’s stage play by Anita Loos and Jane Mur, is Shakespeare on Marx Brothers, with a little Dorothy Parker and The Total Woman thrown in for dramatic effect. The Wicked Witch looks like an amateur when compared to the roles played by Rosalind Russell and Joan Crawford. This is a film where all the stars are women, everything is Black and White, except for the most amazing, lavish, and nonsensical Techni-Color fashion show in movie history.

3) It’s odd that two of the films I liked best in 2003 have scenes in which a nurse slathers medicinal salve onto the protagonist’s penis (Did I mention that I used to be a nurse?). Coincidence? Or something more sinister? Forget about the penis, although now that I’ve mentioned it I know you won’t be able to. I highly recommend The Singing Detective (the movie) based on the acclaimed 1986 BBC series written by Dennis Potter. I first heard of The Singing Detective from a dear friend who suffered from psoriatic arthritis, the disease of singing detectives and the men who write about them. He was really excited to see psoriatic arthritis finally get the attention it deserved! Yes, of course, you should rent the original episodes and watch all six and-a-half hours. Yes, or course, Robert Downey Jr. is no Michael Gambon (he is, after all, Robert Downey Jr.) Get over it. I liked the television series and I also liked the movie. And I really like Robert Downey Jr. So sue me.

Television

The one show I was amazed and surprised to discover this year was CMT’s “Crossroads”, which pairs country-western musicians with rock stars. Not just any country-western singers. Not just any rock stars. Lucinda Williams and Elvis Costello. Martina McBride and Pat Benatar. Willie Nelson and Sheryl Crow. And the one I liked enough to watch twice: Dolly Parton and Melissa Etheridge. Who would have thought?

Best Dog Trick

It finally happened. Snowy bagged his first squirrel. Of course, it was horrifying to watch my cute little white fluffy thing shake a rodent senseless, but I’m sure the dog recognized this as his proudest moment. His triumph was cut short when the neighbor poked her head out from the patio door and said, “Oh my God! Is that Jack?”

I was then forced to shoo my dog away from the old, lame, and now dead pet squirrel the neighbors had adopted, fed, and in essence, groomed for easy capture by a ten-year old West Highland White Terrier hungry for varmints.

Magazines, Anthologies, Disclaimers

I have read less than usual and didn’t delight in my usual game of searching out odd and difficult to come by things. I pretty much limited my genre reading to magazines and anthologies where my own short fiction appeared. (A note on the disclaimer: Recommending these publications may seem self-serving, but remember that I’ve already been paid and have little to gain from these recommendations. Consider also that it makes sense that the people who are publishing me are also publishing other stuff I admire, doesn’t it?)

Witpunk, from Four Walls Eight Windows, edited by Claude Lalumière and Marty Halpern, The 3^rd Alternative, edited by Andy Cox, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, edited by Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link, Polyphony, edited by Deborah Layne and Jay Lake, Imagination Fully Dilated: Science Fiction edited by Robert Kruger and Patrick Swenson, Fairwood Press.

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Leslie What is a writer and radio commentator from Oregon. Her first novel, Olympic Games will be published in May 2004 from Tachyon Publications.