FBPII: In comparison to last February

This is the first month in the life of Percy’s Depressed that Queenie can look back a year and see what she was writing about twelve months ago. Not sure if it’s such a good idea, but it beats coming up with an original one.

Last February, there was a lot of ‘creative’ stuff about Percy’s origins and role in Queenie’s life, some discussion about the role and contents of her man-cupboard; articles about the film festival and going to the theatre; a long piece about Gerry Adams’ duplicity; grief-laden posts about Hunter S. Thompson and Arthur Miller dying, and many ranty posts about newspaper articles in the American newspapers with which Queenie had taken umbrage.

This February, the focus seems to be on the weather, politics, and reading - Queenie has been doing a lot of reading lately. And dvd-watching.

Which leads Queenie to the question: are things better this February than last?

One of her posts last year said “sorry about the delay in this post, but Queenie had a meeting over-run of seven hours today”, so that part of things is definitely MUCH better, as Queenie is out the door at 5pm any evening she wants to now.

Creative arts input-wise, it’s about the same. Except maybe a bit better.

Queenie is profoundly relieved that she has refound the ability to read for hours and hours without losing her concentration. Something to do with the absence of seven hour over-runs she suspects.

Last night, she finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer, who apparently is really talented and successful and has won all kind of writing awards without appearing on her radar before now. He has a ‘stunning debut novel’ call Everything is Illuminated that Queenie should probably track down in order to compare with David Eggers’ debut.

Queenie suspects it will be very similar.

The book appeared on her desk in the office one day last week as a reward for her lending Shalimar the Clown to a colleague.

It’s about a boy with some condition along the autism spectrum dealing with the death of his father on 9/11. He does this by embarking on a Quest to find the owner of a key to a safety deposit box which he finds in his dad’s dressing room. All he knows is that it might belong to someone named Black. So he decides to track down every Black in New York City.

There's a sub-plot concerning his grandparents who survived the bombing of Dresden.

Technically, it’s very clever. Lots of interesting tricks that pit themselves against the futility of modern existence in a global world rife with random acts of terrorism. Unfortunately, there's nothing that wasn't pioneered recently on the West Coast by Eggers and his crew.

Safran Foer doesn't chart any new territory in the autistic spectrum point of view either, in fact it's too like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night for my liking. My liking being that new books that purport to be daringly innovative should be.

But it was the bombing of Dresden bit that really really annoyed me. It's an obvious homage to Vonnegut. But unlike Vonnegut, the fundamental message of this book is 'life is shit when global events result in the people you care about dying - I wish it could have not happened', whereas Vonnegut said 'war is crap, we should stop declaring it on each other'.

And at the age of eighty three Vonnegut is still wryly declaiming this irrefutable fact and railing against extremism in his own and other societies. I was lucky enough to hear an interview with him a few weeks ago, where he announced several times that he was going to be dead soon, so he could say what he liked (as if he ever did otherwise), and such was his humanity, his humour and his overall optimism despite himself that I felt that I was experiencing one of the better moments of my life.

Vonnegut I will mourn when he goes.

So, back to Safran Foer, not blaming him personally, but it seems that being talented and daring and clever in New York last year was all about combining the most garish and commercially successful bits of Eggers, Haddon and Vonnegut.

Queenie is very cynical about East Coast literature these days.

We could talk about the theatre and film this February if we wanted.

She went to see The Vagina Monologues recently.

The problem with TVM is that people tend to do it to raise money for women’s charities, which means that the people undertaking the monologues can’t act their way out of a paper bag, but you still have to pay full whack for a ticket and applaud thunderously.

Queenie was really bored and cold, because the Canadian equivalent of the parish hall is just as draughty and dusty, and that’s all she’ll say about TVM. Apart from declaring that she never wants to hear the phrase ‘my vagina’ enunciated in a Canadian accent ever again.

Queenie has seen a lotta lotta movies recently, all pretty good. There’s a bumper crop of cinema being harvested at the moment. One of the benefits of an insane Republican regime in America I suppose.

Recent great movies she’s seen – Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck, Capote, Grizzly Man, Brokeback Mountain, The Constant Gardner (is it true you can’t get a table in Chapter One now because Ralphie is eating there every evening?), Broken Flowers, and I heart Huckabees.

Mediocre films she’s seen include North Country and Junebug. Although the acting in both was very good.

This weekend Queenie’s all about lounging around the house watching movies, so she’s rented the Coen Brothers’ The Man who Wasn’t There, which she hasn’t seen, In the Bedroom, which she missed last year, and Millions, a film by Danny Boyle which she only found out about yesterday, but which sounds good.

So the initial conclusion seems to be, slightly better on the work and creative inputs front; maybe too much focus on the weather, and the ranty focus moving from the ‘through the glass darkly’ medium to the actuality due to her increased political involvement.

Queenie should probably decide whether that’s a good thing or not.