MAGPIE TALE: All the Wheat in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence

Our contribution to the Magpie Tales series.

Great grand grand father Adelard had no idea he was being painted from the window of the asylum. Some days as he wiped his brow from the summer heat, he would look up at the Saint-Paul Hospital and would see a face peering out at him from a window. Their gaze would be as intent and steady as a cat, making him wonder what was happening with the information sent to the brain by those eyes. Adelard hated being in the range of such eyes, as if they could suck him up from the wheat field and possess him.
And on the afternoon of July 27, 1890, he saw that odd man with red hair and a wound to his head step by his table outside of the Ravoux Inn. He had seen this off fellow around quite a bit, knew he spoke with what he mistook for a German accent and was likely on release or escape from Saint-Paul Hospital. Our Aunt Clarrisse worked as a laundress there for six months, but our family had no other connection. Adelard always wondered why that wheat field stood there between the asylum and and the stone wall that stood between it and the outside world. Who was that wall protecting -- the inmates, those of us on the outside or the wheat?

Wheat was so central to the life of our family. Adelard's hands worked the fields, and the bounty of the harvest nourished his body. The word gluten, which would come to be a scourge in our family in the next century, was a term Adelard had never heard nor understood. When the opportunity to marry Inès Boulliard presented itself in 1893, it was not because of any passion or attraction to this rather plain woman of 24 who had been waiting for a suitor for nearly a decade. It was only because 82 hectares of prime wheat fields and a small vineyard came to him with her hand.

Years later, Inès would educated Adelard on who that "odd little Dutch fellow" was and urged him to sell 12 hectares of the fields to buy a painting. Adelard would hear nothing of it, pointing out that the painting were very poorly executed -- wasting too much paint that was piled on thickly and the man clearly had poor eyesight as well as mental problems because all of his landscapes and figures were blurry and lacked precision.Adelard knew he was much wiser investing in new farm equipment, practical tools that would put food on the table. He would hear no more of these insane ideas of from Inès. She bristled at the word "insane" but would say nothing of it, fearing that Adelard might learn the truth about her sister Jasmine who had been at Saint-Paul since she turned 14. She clung to the hope that her long, near-spinsterhood was not because of her less than stellar complexion but the reputation the Boulliards had gained for being "a bit off" because of Jasmine. She just prayed that it would not be passed down to the next generation they hoped to produce soon. Nearly 25, there was much pressure for Inès to produce heirs while "the field was still fertile" as Adelard and her father would say, unapologetic about putting every situation in to agricultural terms.
A full year and a half passed without any children, and then suddenly they began to arrive. Adelard did little more than to pose in family photos with them. Fatherhood did not suit Adelard , and he fairly much chose to ignore it. Children were there to help him tend the fields in his opinion. But the two boys had no interest in farming, and he daughter had no interest in him or her brothers. She and Inès, however, had a close bond that Adelard always resented. They seemed to speak in their own language, finding refuge from that household of three males, three males who never talked to each other. It was Etienne, the younger son, who worried Inès. He had developed a brooding demeanor worse than his father’s at much too early an age. And she caught him drinking bourbon at the age of 12. Clearly he was following in his father’s footsteps at much too early an age. Adelard’s sullen moods grew darker, and he had gained the nick name of the “grim reaper” as he sauntered along the back trails of the village as he departed the wheat fields at dusk.

Etienne, Inès was certain, would end up in a room at Saint-Paul Hospital before he turned 18, staring out at those wheat fields. Those wheat fields that would turn one more male to madness.

It's Blooming French

If there is one country that evokes the arrival of spring, what would it be? I know that Guatemala is often called the "land of eternal spring" which is fitting, but it stays springlike there, there is not so much the triumph of the arrival of spring after a dark, cold winter.

On Tuesday, a friend and I went out to the avenues for dinner and a pilgrimage to Green Apple Books. Without consciously doing it, I was struck by the theme in the items I was carrying up to the register -- two books by Proust, three books about Proust, a biography of Darius Milhaud and the Criterion DVD of Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast. France = Spring. I've long felt that, and I also notice that I've been listening to a lot of Francis Poulenc lately. (I also have a biography of him that I've been re-reading.) His life as always fascinated me in how he was first an enfant terrible and then sort of found a wonderful balance of the two in his later years.

As spring advances, Poulenc seems like the perfect soundtrack for these days, with Milhaud likely following in late April to early May.

Aging, Paris, Kentridge, Basenjis, Revolution, Caffeine, Hemispheric Incongruence

Sometimes I bemoan the fact that I live in a cultural backwater that has the audacity to call itself the "Paris of the Pacific" (sorry, that's Santiago), but then I am sometimes surprised by the offerings right here in this little berg by the bay. This weekend has been a good example.

This morning I dashed down to be early in line for the SFMOMA presentation of William Kentridge - Five Themes that so many of my friends have been raving about. (And most of my friends are raving, raging or some unseemly combination of both). I had a good feeling about the show when, as I was Twittering on my TREO as I advanced in line, I looked to the right and saw a basenji walking by and looking up at me as if she knew she was peering into the eyes of one of the cult of guardians of the African dingos. The Kentridge show is worthy of all the hype -- a heady mix of drawrings, short films (that include homages of that superb Parisian George Melies and that benign German Lotte Reiniger), assemblages, puppet shows, constructions, musings on aging and other stuff).

It was a great show, but there was no time to doddle and I rushed off to MUNI to that charming arrondissement footsteps away from the Pacific, West Portal, where I ventured to catch the matinee of Faubourg '36. I went to get my ticket early and asked the agent if I should return quickly to ensure I got a seat. He rolled his eyes and said, "Uh, that's probably not going to be an issue." (Confirmed later when the lights went down on me and the three other people in the theater. I guess I over estimated the appeal of musical comedies about the clash of Fascists and Leftists in the first third of the 20th Century Paris.)

So I headed over to Fresca (which bills itself as Noveau Peruvian Cuisine) for a nice Peruvian crab salad. However, instead of Twittering, I got into a sort of nasty argument via IMing with one of my exes in Park Slope over my distaste of the clash of cultures at Fresca. Granted, the food and service were good, but they were playing salsa music and served me chips and salsa. Wrong hemisphere and continent. "Oh, it doesn't matter, it's still Latino," W___ in Park Slope texted back. "Would you say that if you were in a restaurant in Tokyo and got bruschetta while they played polka music but defended because it was all from the Northern Hemisphere?"

"Oh, GB, you obsess about things that just don't matter," W___ texted back.

"Oh, and by the way -- noveau Peruvian Cuisine? Excúseme, si no es: ¿el nuevo cocinar de los Peruvian?"

Well, at least Faubourg 36 (marketed in the U.S. as Paris '36 since apparently the distributors thing people in the U.S. are so dumb they barely know where Paris is, let alone being abl to locate one of its better known arrondissements) did not disappoint and was what it should have been: a sentimental two-hour tale of peasants occupying a theater taking it out of the clutches of a Fascist landlord. The number just kept getting bigger and loonier. And, like any self respecting musical, it had big number about going to the sea.
While its charming yet infirm middle-aged male stars were in long swim trunks and tank tops, they outfitted male (sexily Leftist) star Clovis Cornillac in a revealingly thin strip of brief beachwear. Only then did it connect of who he reminded me of -- gay porn legend Jeff Strykker.

Though Cornillac was cast as the "fetching young male lead" he is nearly 42. And it reminded me (going back to Kentridge's themes on aging and Melies) that the French have long had a history of allowing both male and female stars to play such roles into a time when, well by comparison in the U.S. , they'd have Cloris Leachman on Dancing with the stars. I could not help but think ofArletty at nearly 50 playing the "babe" in Les enfants du paradis. Or consider Mistinguett in this clip at 60 playing a young mother singing to her "baby". Perhaps they felt that by casting a nine-year-old girl as the baby, no one would notice that more than one spring had passed since her coming out debut.

These thoughts filled my had as I hopped on the K-train from West Portal (a neighborhood that is surreal to me like most western San Francisco Arrondissements because they feel so non-San Francisco) and then to the Balboa Park BART and then up to Ritual, where it has become a ritual for me to meet up with Friendatella Saturday afternoons to gossip and share insights on the meaning of life and culture. We've debated about the meaning of this roasterie's logo. Is it the flag of Turkey or the hammer and sickle or a gangland razor swung upon the throats of hypocrites. I used to despise this place because of the long lines, abundance of 20-something hipsters pecking away on their iMacs with the self-righteous grandeur of the cult of the Apple/Fuhrer Herr Jobs, and disdain for those of us with speckles of natural highlights in our hair. But Friendatella and I have discovered a row of three tables in the back near the bathrooms and with a scenic view of the burlap bags filled with the beans from Lago Atitlan and Vietnam where our elder faces will not diminish the views from the wall-to-wall windows in the front. Sitting their with my legs crossed in the European male way and nibbling my Madeleine, I felt the spirit of Mistinguett take over me the desire to put on one more show before the fogs of the summer return to Topeka on the Pacific.

I'm Rethinking My Opinon of Les Miz

A quarter of a century ago when many were raving about Les Miz, I dismissed it as West End/Reagan/Thatcher schlock that raped the imagination of Victor Hugo. I put it just a notch above Cats and Phantom but that's not saying much.

Over the past 72 hours, I've had more emails and Facebook posts about Susan Boyle singing "I Dream a Dream" from the aforementioned show since 9/11 or the Iraq invasion. I r\emember Patti Lapone singing it in the mid-1980s and thought it was a sweet tune with a sweeping melody but never gave much thought to the specifics of the lyrics. Did anyone really hear anything beyond "I dream a dream" as Ms. Boyle's soared above cheers Saturday night? Did anyone hear her saying that her life was hell as she smiled? This column really gets at the hear of it. And here are the complete lyrics to the song. I suggest following them while replaying her rendition for the 100th time since it helps me understand why she has captured the imagination of millions.

Fantime - "I Dream a Dream"
[Stage Directions: Fantine is left alone, unemployed and destitute]

[FANTINE]
There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame

He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came

And still I dream he'll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

Music! Revolution! Peasants! Paris!

I have the day off tomorrow and plan to see this. I'm getting a bit excited already.

Oh My Godard, What a Deal

In these recessionary times, we're all looking for good deals. And while I often snicker when I hear the cultural backwater that is San Francisco referred to as the "Paris of the Pacific", I was pretty pleased that last week when our humble Castro Theatre hosted the first screening in the U.S.A of Jean-Luc Godard's (ironically) Made in the U.S.A. Sadly, travel prevented me from catching the screening, but I suspect a Criterion DVD is just around the corner.

And, speaking of Godard, our local rag The Believer magazine has just released their 2009 film issue. This magazine is really hit or miss, but this issue is worth its $10 cover price for the magazine alone, but inside is an amazing little jewel of a DVD dedicated to Godard in the U.S.A. There are two Dick Cavett interviews, an interview of him on the beach in a bikini in Del Mar with Alice Waters, and several other extras.

I got my copy at the 826 Valencia store for $8.26 (go figure) including tax.

And while I was out on Valencia, I was thrilled to see that Dog Eared Books had several copies of the dear old Horizon magazine, a periodical published from the 1950s to the mid-1970s. This arts quarterly -- like American Heritage magazine -- arrived boxed and in a hard cover. I almost teared up as I thumbed through the familiar pages of this magazine that was on coffee tables of several of my relatives as a child and formed many of my early impressions about art, taste and aesthetics. How fitting that two issues featured favorite artists of Catalonia -- Gaudi and Miro.

We can't put a price on things that bring us happiness, but having Horizon and Godard on a Saturday afternoon is pretty close to bliss.

Bonjour, Paris...

...no offense, but our president is much better looking, more ethnically diverse and more progressive than yours. Freedom Fries are history. By the way, we're striking "the decider" from our list of non-words.

Belle

Hokey as the Barbara Walters interview may have been, I have to admit to being smitten by Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. There's much to be said about Franco-Italian aristocratic singer-songwriter supermodel first ladies. Could Obama pick her as a running mate?

Know Your Necessities

"Take care of the luxuries, and the necessities will take care of themselves," a certain, fey friend told me once. She also spoke of the "conspiracy of the weak over the strong." I'll lead it to you to ferret out her alleged source of those quotes and determine if you agree.

All I can say as that one of the obvious, positive balancing acts that comes with the passage of a certain number of years is the reversal of defined and attainable and valued necessities. Booze, boys, fast cars and other fleeting pleasures seem to be replaced by increasingly extravagances that were once defined as bland and assumed presences that now have greater nuance and price tags -- shelter, clothing, food, even water that comes in its many variations.

Shelter, in fact, can take on such a starring role as I've enjoyed Alain de Botton describe in his book The Architecture of Happiness, its title suggesting that design and form extend to far more abstract and defining aspects of life than just four walls and a roof.

He takes time to wax poetic on Casa Malaparte in Capri, a structure that in Godard's Contempt some might argue upstaged Bardot who is now a 70-something, wrinkled, hobbling racist while the villa has far outlived its Fascist creator, Curzio Malaparte. It stands today, looking ever youthful and pristine, apolitical and in harmony with the Meditteranean.

As Botton explains:

With its proud isolation, its juxtapositioning of ruggedness and refinement its unblinking, hardy defiance of the elements, and the aesthetic debt it owed to Ancient Rome on the one hand and Italian modernism on the other, the house did indeed pick up on key traits of Malaparte's character. Fortunately for visitors, however, it turned out not to be a slavishly faithful portait of its owner in all of his faces -- a difficult prospect for any house, certainly, but particularly so in Malaparte's case, for that would have necessitated the inclusion of pretentious furnishings, dead-end corridors, perhaps a shooting range (he was a Facisct until 1943) and a few broken windows (he liekd a drink and then a fight). Rather than reflecting the author's many foibles, Casa Malaparte, like all effective works of idealisation, assisted its gifted yet flawed proprietor in orienting himself towards the noblest sides of his personality."

Is it telling that I live in a long, skinny Edwardian with rich-hued rooms filled with remnants of travels and past lives in other parts of the world, anchored by two rooms with a wall of curving windows as their centerpieces -- one looking out on the bustling, sometimes tawdry corner of urban life, the other glimpsing onto a pristine garden filled with lilies, sterling silver roses and succulents.

Film Type

When I went to see Contempt at the Castro (which I'd love to make a film about called Contempt at the Castro) recently, I was struck by how much Godard's films are about typography. I've revisiting a number of his films ever since, and this theory has proven true as he advance through the '60s, perhaps no more pointedly than in Weekend which must be 30% typography even before subtitles. They are often purposely arbitrary, abstractly concrete, concretely abstract. They demand us to look at them typographic entities, imparting mostly pointless information such as what time of day it is and how fast the car is going.

Godard figured heavily in my early film education even in junior high school when I made my sister take me to Janus films on her college campus while she went boutiquing. I started with Cocteau but was soon drawn more to Truffaut (who tending for fairly fancy but sparsely used script) and Malle. During spring break of my sophomore year, I went to see Truffaut's The Story of Adele H. during my spring break when other kids were going to South Padre Island. Sitting in a packed theater in Austin, Texas, I was agile enough in French at the time to haughtily ignore the subtitles. But it felt like an entirely new language to me, so decidedly not North American though much of it was set in Canada. I thought it even had its own smell. I've not seen it in 30 plus years, and my copy of it arrived this week, making me wonder how it will touch me all these years later. Will it have the same smell.
Around the same time I heard screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury, who was being held up as the hottest new screenwriter in Hollywood with Thieves Like Us and Nashville under her belt. Here was a writer with verve and integrity. When asked what she would write about if she had no restrictions, she said that it would be a film about nothing but a green beam of light, and the entire audience went "Ah..." with the synchronization and blast of a Godard inter-title. Tewksbury went on to direct and write Doogie Howser, M.D. and Felicity.

In Godard's Masculin féminin: 15 faits précis there is a Ford sedan that pulls up with the license plate "SHAPE 9435". When I saw that in college, I was sure that name and those numbers would hold great meaning. Perhaps they do because I remember them all these years later but don't know their meaning. I think the most important word in that film's title is précis, best understood if in stark Helvetica.

What Land Are You From?

With today's simultaneous release of DVD sets of films of both Sophia Loren and Catherine Deneuve, Dave Kehr had this interesting description of these two sovereign nations in his review in today's Times:

Lorenland is a proletarian world of workers and peasants, defined by spontaneity and sensuality, a world of broad comedy and even broader melodrama. The petit principality of Deneuve is the Monaco of movies: a primarily urban environment of designer boutiques and chic restaurants, in which emotions are muffled and sex discreet (and frequently unhappy).

Can you guess which one is Junk Thief's patron saint? On the topic of ice queens, the ever eloquent Dunlap offers this perspective.

Can't Get Enough of It This Week

Un peu plus Bardot - Contact

Why has she been speaking to me so strongly lately? Her musical career is grossly under appreciated in the States. This clip proves that she was the bridge between Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Devo.

Contempt!

Now that Bryce Digdug is back from the Big Easy, we had a chance to compare notes on the Minnie Riperton shows at Jazzfest and Thursday night's performance at the Fox. There was a near riot in the rush ticket line that snaked along Market Street all the way down to Franklin.

Our banter got pretty heated as we shared our opinions about the two concerts but could not come to a consensus on which was the better (apparently Minnie didn't include her San Francisco curtain call, a rousing rendition of "Feelings", in New Orleans) as we sat in our seats last night at the Castro Theater. Our little tiff was soon blown away by gentle Mediterranean breezes as we enjoyed Godard's Le Mépris (Contempt). What a wonderfully wacky cast -- Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance and Fritz Lang. Lang (who played himself a la Cecile B. Demille in Sunset Boulevard), perpetuated the myth that he fled Germany the night he was offered the role of the Third Reich's official filmographer by Goebbels. It was a bit more complex than that. However, it was fun to see him refer to Brecht as "BB".

The other BB -- la Bardot -- had plenty of bare bottomed scenes, hilariously covering it with a book while sunbathing in one scene. Perhaps more erotic were the architecture and scenery -- a shabby chic Italian country villa, a shabby deco cinema and a modern villa built on a seaside cliff in Capri with better-than-sex views.

Bardot was actually a very good actress in the film. There was certainly plenty of focus on her physical attributes ("You like zee thigh?" "Oui!" "You like zee breast?" "Oui!"), but she purposely tried to tone it down, putting on a dark wig and chatting with her mom on the phone.
Though unable to come to agreement on Minnie Riperton, Bryce and I agreed that Bardot's costar Michel Piccoli was very hot in that sexy Eurochic/trash '60s sort of way. Unlike today's male Hollywood overly buff/waxed mannequin stars, he was lean and furry in a great sort of way, having a wonderful scene wearing just his cigar and a fedora in a tub as la Bardot ranted at him. Okay, he did need just a little trimming around the edges, but he was particularly fetching on the roof of that Capri villa in a cream colored linen suit and his same fedora.
Debriefing over dinner at Le Mediterranean (detect a theme here), I nearly spat out my Merlot and had to mask my horror when Bryce said he'd never heard any of Bardot's great pop singles from the late '60s or her frequent partner in crime, Serge Gainsbourg. Contempt, indeed!

Just in case there are any other readers who are equally unacquainted, I suggest they check out the great Bardot/Gainsbourg collaboration on "Bonnie and Clyde", and Bardot's definitive "Harley Davidson" (below) where she makes Nancy Sinatra look like FLDS sister-wife #18.

SRO: Paris, Barcelona..The Mission

At one point I seemed to be quite persistent in writing up reviews and observations about shows, films, books and music I consume. I've been a bit distracted about doing that of late. So here is a short glimpse of Friday and Saturday nights' outings.

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In theory I despise stage musicals or, more accurately, the people who are all gaga about them. So I surprised myself by accepting an offer to go with R_____ to see 42nd Street Moon's sparse but effective restaging of Coco with Andrea Marcovicci, who is sort of a non-diva diva. She was oddly an icon for my sister in her high school years when appearing as Dr. Betsy Chernak Taylor on the daytime soap Love Is a Many Splendored Thing set in an unusually bland early 1970s San Francisco.

Marcovicci generally got the role spot on with her subdued approach and shedding what seemed to be unrehearsed tears when singing "Always Mademoiselle". The first staging of the show in nearly 40 years, it reminded me that the Andre Previn score is a guilty pleasure up there with "I'll Plant My Own Tree".

I actually saw the show twice during its initial run. First with my grandmother in the winter of 1970, after which I drove my family crazy singing a la Hepburn "Who the devil kay-yours/What a woman way-yours?" The following summer I saw it with my sister, who was pursuing a sadly aborted fashion design career, when it starred the more appropriate Danielle Darrieux.

This clip of the original doesn't quite capture the flash of the mirrored stairs from the good seats we had. It all reminded me of old flagship store of Hall's in downtown Kansas City. My grandmother wore a get up not unlike Hepburn's. Change the skirt to slacks and lose the jewelry, and it could pass for Junk Thief 40 years later.

There was no mirrored staircase in the 42nd Moon production, but it brought back memories of the original. Apparently enough people want to share that memory, since it was announced that less than five percent of seat are still available during its run.

- - -

Also sold out for its run is Barcelona: Un Mapa, the first film I've ever seen in Catalan and bringing back wonderful memories of my November trip to Catalonia. Although it included an old man fond of dressing up as a woman, a fair amount of male full frontal nudity and surreal dialog, it had little in common with Almodóvar, Buñuel or other Spanish film makers. It was defiantly Catalonian and felt like a Pinter play directed by Bergman.

It was also nice to be introduced Pablo Derqui (on the left) who spent his scene wearing nothing but black brief. Nice to meet you Pablo.

While I can still only speak a handful of Catalan words, I am proud that I could immediately distinguish when the characters shifted from Catalan to Spanish

Criterion Empire

Darn those folks at Criterion and their ongoing attempts to bankrupt me. As if reissuing 3 Penny Opera this fall were not mind blowing enough, they've got a line up this spring that not only includes a four disc reissue of The Last Emperor but also The Ice Storm and Hiroshi Teshigahara's review on the life and works of Gaudi. I also spent much of yesterday evening searching in vain for their release this week of the Lubitsch musicals, primarily featuring my maternal grandfather's muse, Maurice Chevalier. Don't worry, it doesn't diminish my love of hokum such as Skidoo and Earthquake, but I know I'll be investing money in these instead of wasting it to see Spiderman 6 at the Imax.

Though a Tad Late, It Arrived

Embiggening suggested.

Random Basque/Baske Trivia #14 and #375

(We'll be sharing random facts about the Basque (Baske) in the weeks ahead. Why? Why not! You can never know too much about the Basque, and Junk Thief plans to be launching his Basque literacy program among middle school children soon.)

Though Junk Thief generally didn't worry that his very small ear lobes would prevent him from ever wearing big hoop ear rings, it does worry him about stories about his mother's blood line. Maybe its from his father's Jewish line. True Basque are noted for their very large ear lobes, and they tend to take great delight in ridiculing lobe-challenged outsiders.

A favorite battle cry through the years:
eta tiro, eta tiro/belarrimotxari And shoot, and shoot/at the stumpy-eared ones

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Euskera is possibly the oldest and generally regarded as the most difficult European language and has little cross over with French or Spanish. However, one word, jauntxo (honcho) has managed to make it into the English vernacular. Though generally defined as boss or big shot, the exact meaning of the word, through the years, has taken on other subtleties.

More Melies, One Century On

I just can't seem to get enough of George Melies these days. In recognition of its centennial, I post perhaps my favorite of all of his films: The Eclipse - The Romance of the Moon and the Sun. Is it the first same sex romantic story ever committed to film? I'm not sure. But when the sun gets behind the moon, the expression on the face of the lunar star is, well, captivating.

Merry Méliès

I've long been a fan of the film sof Georges Méliès, but he has figured unusually prominent in my psyche this year. Perhaps all the dreamy swirls of Gaudi in Barcelona from a century earlier and the Centennial of such Méliès classics as The Dream of the Opium Eater, The Eclipse and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea have added to it. Like other cinematic pioneers from Griffith to Welles, he spent the last decades of his life in obscurity and near squalor.

Thus Brian Selnick's "children's" book The Invention of Hugo Cabret is proving to be a perfect holiday season read. Its 500+ pages are made up of nearly 300 pages of illustrations, yet it is less a graphic novel or Harry Potteresque fantasy as it is a more lyrical Doctrow treatment of history and redemption of an overlooked artist.

Fittingly, I added another volume of Méliès films to my library this week yet have yet to come across a print of the The Dream of the Opium Eater which has long intrigued me. The San Francisco Silent Film festival featured a number of his century old works this summer, yet they have yet to share this one. There is always hope.