A Cosmic Community

      We've been reading the accounts online regarding the shooting at Cosmic Pizza early Saturday evening.  The owner, Richard Evans, was shot multiple times during an attempted robbery and died shortly after in his neighbor's yard.  It's the nightmare that none of us want to hear about one of our entrepreneurs that was trying to make our city a finer place for all of us to live.  We never had the opportunity to visit Cosmic Pizza, but from all accounts it was a welcoming environment meant for families to enjoy and much of that was because of Rich's personality.  

      He leaves a wife (who is Thai and speaks very little English) and 3 young children.  Our hearts go out to them.  We wish Dexter could rub up against them and work his magic to make them feel better.  That always helps everything! 

      Fortunately, a friend has started an online fund to help with expenses at http://www.gofundme.com/3ac52k.  Please consider a donation and share this site with all of you friends.

Frank Langella & Stephen Fry – Takes on the Celebrity Memoir

The Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography

Stephen Fry in Jeeves & Wooster

     Stephen Fry is probably best known to PBS audiences for his performance as Jeeves with Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster in Jeeves & Wooster and rarefied roles in various movies like Peter’s Friends and V for Vendetta and as Oscar Wilde in Wilde.  He’s also written some very funny novels.  The Liar actually captures exactly what goes on in a British boarding school and that is not learning magic spells.  The Hippopotamus has a country house party setting and some very bad behavior by a hilarious cast of characters.

     I haven’t read his first memoir, which was about his childhood through his release from a juvenile detention center.  The Fry Chronicles, his second volume, covers his undergraduate years at Cambridge through his first successes on stage, on British television, and his updating of the book for the musical Me and My Girl, which left him comfortably off

Broadway Poster from
Me and My Girl

(basically the late 1970s to the late 1980s).  In writing about himself, Fry is self-deprecating to a point where I wondered if he was falsely modest or self-effacing to the point of self-abnegation. Although written with humor and great detail, it also made me think, “Well!  Lucky you!”   I wondered at the vast system of serendipitous meetings, friends of friends looking out for each other, and the good fortune of being allowed to succeed or fail in what was basically a closed system stemming from Cambridge.  I’m looking forward to his next volume since, in the ‘90s, he went through a well-publicized breakdown and achieved great success in a variety of media, but I hope it isn’t as precious as this book.  

Dropped Names

     Frank Langella’s Dropped Names is his first book and it’s a corker.  The title is double-edged.  He’s dropping names of people with whom he has come into contact but who, except for one notable exception, have also died.  Langella suavely reveals himself indirectly while writing the equivalent of Elizabethan miniature paintings about three dozen people, most of whom had some connection to or were active participants in show business.  

Dexter Visits Frank Langella

     His takes on people he didn’t know very well such as Paul Newman and Susannah York are like X-rays.  They’re bare bones portraits coupled with the shadows of poignant aging.  He captures Maureen Stapleton’s earthiness – sober and drunk – and Tony Curtis’s enthusiasm, admiring both these performers major characteristics as well as their acting talent.  Those he knew really well are presented warts and all, but he never retreats from finding something positive to hold on to

Anne Bancroft and Frank Langella
in A Cry of Players

about them.  The richest portraits are of his closest or longest-term friends such as Anne Bancroft or the sole living person, Bunny Mellon.  

     Since it’s not told in chronological order, shards of Langella’s personality glisten from his withholding, arrogant youth (Elia Kazan had his number while Deborah Kerr showered him with her unfailing grace) through his growing stage success (he adored Raul Julia, Alan Bates, and Jill Clayburgh) and his later film career.  I’d argue that he’s had one of the great post-55 year old careers of any actor and that it might not have been possible if he’d been a major star earlier because we wouldn’t be so surprised by him now.  

     I couldn’t decide if I disliked him or his character more in Diary of a Mad Housewife, though I thought he did admirable work with mediocre material in Dracula.  It was his supporting role as the proud, scheming chief of staff in Dave that I really took notice of his honesty.  Has there been another actor that’s better captured a White House staffer in a movie?  I wish he’d played Nixon in Nixon instead of Anthony Hopkins, but he did get a chance and took it beautifully in Frost/Nixon. 

Lauren Ambrose with Langella in Starting Out in the Evening

However, the performance of his that deserved greater attention was his novelist in Starting Out in the Evening.  Admired, self-reflective, not certain he’s lived up to his early promise, but drawn to youth and still willing for a third act try at success, it’s a character to make a viewer admire, chuckle with, and ultimately ache for.  Dropped Names is a perfect book (end) to that performance.  I think he’s got a couple of other great performances in him.  I don’t know if he has another gem of a book in him or not.  It doesn’t matter since we have this one.  I’m a slow, conscientious reader usually, but I burned through this in a day and I’ve gone back to re-read particular pieces and wonder at his wit, style, and mesmerizing ability to summon up the essence of another’s life in brief scenes, exact details, and dialogue that cuts to the quick.

DICK

Even in 1999, Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams were going to be acting stars

     It’s been forty years since the Watergate hearings and there’s currently a self-congratulatory documentary by Robert Redford about All The President’s Men then and now to commemorate that anniversary, but Dick (1999) starring Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams says more perhaps about ‘the long national nightmare’ than the more serious works.  Dunst and Williams play teenagers who accidentally involve themselves in the Watergate break-in, while trying to mail a letter to win a date with Bobby Sherman.  From there, they develop crushes on Richard Nixon, while being his secret Youth Strategists and walking Checkers (the 3rd or 4th), the dog that hates him.  Things go wrong when they discover Nixon’s tapes and turn their stories over to Woodward and Bernstein as ‘Deep Throat.’

Dunst and Williams with Dexter on the Mall

     Dick nails the look, fashion, and music of the early ‘70s but also the era’s socio-political issues such as the Vietnam draft, recreational drug use, U.S.-U.S.S.R détente, pop teen idols, the generation gap, and the power of the press.  The strong script by director Andrew Fleming and Sheryl Longin does this while also presenting a pretty accurate history of Nixon’s presidency even while parodying it.  

Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams in the Oval Office

The four main performers are pitch perfect, with Dunst already demonstrating the wild exuberance that is the key to her stardom as the flirty Betsy and Williams finding a range as the nerdy Arlene that might not really be there in the script.  She may be the supreme chameleonic movie actress of her generation and the moment where Arlene first tries putting in and wearing contact lenses is hilarious.  Devon Gummersall as Betsy’s stoner, porn-watching brother is also a stretch from sweet, dorky Brian Krakow on My So-Called Life.  He’s kept on working, but I haven’t seen him in anything else.  Dan Hedaya (Carla’s ex-husband on Cheers) is far more 

Dan Hedaya as Tricky Dick

persuasive as Tricky Dick than Anthony Hopkins during his sweat fest in Oliver Stone’s Nixon.  I thought he was having a heart attack for three hours and wondered why no one would call a medic. 

Witnesses to the Document Shredding

     The only sour notes are Will Ferrell and Bruce McCulloch as Woodward and Bernstein, respectively.  Ferrell is good, but he doesn’t have the prickly, WASP/Jewish chemistry with McCulloch that Redford and Hoffman had.  McCulloch does a bit with his wig that isn’t funny and then repeats it about three times.  He was quirky and fresh as a member of The Kids in the Hall, but not in his scenes here.  The irony about All The President’s Men was that Redford seemed like the conscientious rabbinical student while Hoffman was the smooth sexy one.  Fortunately, Redford provided the foundation for a couple of generations of daring, intelligent filmmakers at a time when Hollywood turned itself into a brothel catering to the violent fantasies of fifteen-year-old boys or those that think that way.  Dick wasn’t a big hit at the time and it’s not a cult favorite like Election and I think it’s because teens and young adults didn’t know or remember Watergate.

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain

A tightly coiled comic allegory about Pro Football, Hollywood maneuvering, and the Iraq War

Dexter Checks Out Ben Fountain's Books*

     Ben Fountain’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk won the National Book Critics’ Circle Award – the prize that spotlights excellent writers on the cusp of prominence, and was nominated for the National Book Award.  Such accolades don’t always guarantee quality, but in this instance they do.  The other heartening fact is that, although he’s been writing for decades, this is Ben Fountain’s first published novel and he’s in his mid-fifties.  It was more than worth the wait.

Dallas Cowboys Game

     Billy Lynn is a nineteen-year-old Iraqi War hero, who’s been on a whirlwind U.S. tour with the rest of the Bravo Squad after a short battle captured on Fox news and various other networks.  Their last stop is a 2004 Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving game, where they will be part of the half-time show alongside headliners Destiny’s Child.  The plot revolves around whether a Hollywood movie version of the squad’s battle success will be optioned.  However, that’s secondary to the classical unity of the setting, namely that the story primarily takes place, except for a couple of flashbacks, at Texas Stadium from just before the game through a post-game fight in the parking lot.  

     Fountain captures the first inklings of doubt by the American public after the rush to war.  That range and variation of emotions is even greater in Texas, where everything is bigger.  Building upon intense detail and ‘you are there’ immediacy in the manner of Tom Wolfe, Fountain’s brand of realism is allegorical, drawing a parallel between the various strata of Cowboys’ fans and American society.  There

The War in Iraq

are a couple of chestnuts – practically clichés – which Fountain spins anew, such as the very rich can get (almost) anything they want, and that fighting men – whether soldiers, football players, or corporate executives, stick together.  One irony is that, by the end, Billy is almost looking forward to returning to Iraq where he might be safer.  

     Fountain uses a third person limited omniscient point of view.  The reader is fully connected to Billy through his feelings and memories, but Billy doesn’t tell the story.  Fountain’s sensibility merges with Billy’s so that the author can make the bigger points that the character would be unable to articulate if he were narrating the story.  This is a practice that Don DeLillo (and earlier Thomas Pynchon) mastered and Billy Lynn sometimes feels like the literary heir to Gary, the protagonist of End Zone, a 1972 novel that equates college football with the nuclear arms race.  Actually, Henry James probably originated this practice.  Fountain doesn’t get as abstract as DeLillo on occasion and he doesn’t mix literary genres in the manner of Pychon and because of that he’ll probably end up with a more commercially successful work.  His laidback sense of humor and keenly sharp dialogue (and narrative description that sometimes feels like dialogue) recall Mark Twain. His folksy, glistening portrait of Norm Oglesby, Cowboys’ owner and the book’s villain, is a real gem, especially for those who might wonder if it’s based on Jerry Jones.

*original photo by Ron Heflin

Blue Gibbon Chinese

Traditional Cincinnati Chinese 
that's mostly full of familiar dishes

Blue Gibbon Dining Room

      When we were joining Ann and Woody for dinner we decided on the Blue Gibbon, all of us commenting that we had not been there for a few years. The restaurant dates back to 1983 in Paddock Hills, but the family business began years before that in New York City and Southeast Asia.  

Chef Frank's Special

      Reading through the menu of mostly familiar selections, I was feeling a little overwhelmed with the many offerings.  That's when I usually go with something I've had on many occasions when I noticed Chef Frank's Special.  I don't usually go for deep fried items, but this proved the most intriguing of my search for something different.  We all agreed it was the best dish of the night…generous pieces of chicken stirred with fresh broccoli, carrots, and water chestnuts that all came together in a rich and slightly sweet brown sauce.

Lettuce Wraps

      Ann and Woody shared the Lettuce Wraps that looked typical for this standard appetizer.  Eric and I both had the Wonton Soup that proved satisfying. 

The Triple Crown

Ann chose the Triple Crown made with shrimp, scallops, and chicken with vegetables in a light sauce.  She enjoyed her choice.  Woody was

Bean Curd Hunan Style

on his diet du jour (vegetarian that day) and went with the Bean Curd Hunan Style, a spicy rendition highlighted with broccoli, baby corn, and two types of sliced mushrooms. 

Squid Phoenix

Eric passed around his Squid Phoenix, which was a lot like Ann's, but with thickly sliced tender tentacles as the protein.  

      Looking at our meals, I couldn't help but wonder what the original recipes were like when Chinese workers came to this country to help build the transcontinental railroad in the late 1800's.  Would they even recognize what we were eating?  Probably not.  (Although original recipes with duck feet and bird's nest may be found on the special menu for native Chinese in some restaurants.)  There may be a few preparations that are still pretty close to their Cantonese roots but others, like fortune cookies, are completely an American invention.  There is one thing for sure though, we have them to thank not only for completing our railway system, but for introducing us to our first "ethnic" cuisine.  Lucky for us that places like the Blue Gibbon are now so familiar.

http://www.bluegibbon.net

My dinner was pretty good that night too!

Patti Smith and the Contemporary Arts Center

Inside the CAC

     Ten years ago the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) opened across from the Aronoff Center with a national splash.  It was one of Zaha Hadid’s first major constructed buildings.  Before that, she’d been more a theorist than a practitioner.  It was

Buona Terra: Gelateria & Creperie

French and Italian specialties 
meet for a modern rendezvous

Buona Terra's Sleek Modern Space

     Mount Lookout Square welcomed another eatery this past Friday in the crêperie and gelatería Buona Terra.  It’s a compact, sleek space that is the epitome of contemporary modern, though without the industrial undertones of the

The Angels' Share

Imagine The Full Monty without the performing or Trainspotting without the speed

     Ken Loach’s latest movie, The Angels’ Share, was awarded third place at Cannes last year.  It’s a comedy based on the desperation of a group of young unemployed people who form a bond through community service and the chance they’re given by their social worker.  It’s a shaggy dog tale that

Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell): The Child’s Child

     The Child’s Child has been rumored to be the last novel Ruth Rendell will write as Barbara Vine.  If so, it’s been a great run since 1987, during which Vine has won major mystery awards and probably should have been nominated for or won

Cilantro Vietnamese Bistro

An around the corner move 
lends room to some old favorites

Cilantro's New Home

      Eric and I started going to Cilantro around 10 years ago when it was a hole-in-the-wall with barely enough room to sit down estaminet on Clifton Avenue.  It had that feel of being in the middle of a university and, more appropriately, a space that could be found in an alley of Saigon.  The pho soups and noodle dishes, combined with a 1-2-3 simple order concept, were fairly new to our city at the time.  The tastes and smells