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Word of the day : wend
                                      : to direct one's course
                                      : travel, proceed

Well, the Fischer family had a wonderful time in Savannah yesterday. Pizza, frozen yogurt, some toys and a new shirt for Gabriel. Other news:

- Julia and I are pleased that I got a part-time job - money that will come in handy for our upcoming, destined-to-be-epic trip to Italy next May.

- College football season kicked off with a blast, didn't it? Roll Tide.

- Gabriel has class pictures on Friday. Once again, this will be good for some laughs.

- There was a frog in our house the other day! No, I didn't scream like a girl when it leapt onto my wrist...

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Here are a bunch of capsule book and movie reviews of some works I've read and seen over the last couple of weeks:

Books

Pat Conroy's The Lords of Discipline is probably my favorite novel by the author. It's quintessential Conroy - grandiloquent, sentimental, autobiographical, moving - a loving ode to Charleston and an equally big-hearted and scathing portrait of the Citadel in the mid-1960s. I was caught up in the story of Will McLean, a young cadet who gets through four ritualized, hellish years at the Citadel with a sense of humor and three dependable roommates. There's mystery and intrigue too, romance as well. It's melodramatic yet deeply felt, and I don't think anyone everywhere has expressed their feelings about South Carolina, the south, and Charleston as unabashedly as Conroy has.
(****)

If you haven't read David Goodis (1917-1967), a Philadelphia-born, underrated writer of pulp and noir in the fifties, you're not the only one. But do yourself a favor and check out his 1956 novel (well, at about 160 pages, it's more of a novella) Down There, which was the inspiration for Francois Truffaut's great 1960 film Shoot the Piano Player. Eddie is a former Carnegie Hall pianist who now performs at night in a down-and-out Philadelphia bar, glazedly and abstractedly in a world of his own. He's yanked into the messy, turbulent present by a saucy waitress and the arrival of his criminal brother, who's being hounded by a couple of low-rent thugs. Fatalistic and inevitable (like most noir), with a feel for the squalid underbelly, full of lost dreams, humor, it's a top-notch book. Eddie's internal dialogue is well-done, nicely conveying the character of a man dragged back into a world he thought he had risen above.
(****)

Suzanne Collins' Catching Fire, the second book in The Hunger Games trilogy, just can't match the first book's excitement and freshness. Unlike the first book, I felt this book's overlength - by the time Collins got around to the Games (the Quarter Quell), I had almost checked out. Still, for a sequel, it's not bad - imaginative, with some surprises, though none of the new characters are that interesting. No need to read Mockingjay.
(**1/2)

Truman Capote's In Cold Blood has certainly lost none its galvanic allure and creepy bravura. For all intents and purposes, Capote invented the "new journalism" - which, in this landmark instance, takes the form of a non-fiction novel. Perry Smith is of literature's great characters - the half-Cherokee, neglected, beaten, intelligent psychopath who murders the Kansas farm family. Capote's empathy is on par with his open-hearted, wide-eyed observations of a truly startling crime. You'll wonder how he was able to capture so much.
(*****)

I'm not sure why Ruth Rendell felt the need to pen a follow-up to 1998's blistering, dark A Sight For Sore Eyes, whose plot came full-circle. Nevertheless, she does with Rendell's long-standing Inspector Wexford, now retired, on the scene, trying to piece together the mystery of the bodies recently unearthed in the vault - only there's an additional body down there now with the others. Chapter by chapter, it's pretty good, but it feels very slight and I began to lose interest in finding out the identity of the new body: turns out it was a victim of human trafficking - yawn.
(***)

Well, I'll do film reviews tomorrow, I guess.

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Here's an entry in my 500 Greatest Performances of All Time:

Tom Hanks
as Captain Miller in Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Ah, yes, 1998. The year in which one of Oscar's true travesties took place: Roberto Benigni's grating, nails-on-chalkboard performance beat out career-best work by Ian McKellen, Nick Nolte, and Edward Norton. Hanks, too, of course, was beat out, even though he was at his commanding, clear-eyed, charismatic best in this war drama, lording over a disgruntled, courageous, loyal band of charges as they seek to find and return Matt Damon's now-siblingless title character. Hanks' face is a map of sorrow and hell.

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A football list (or two) today:
Best Safeties of My Lifetime:

1) Ed Reed
2) Ronnie Lott
3) Troy Polamalu
4) Steve Atwater
5) Brian Dawkins
6) John Lynch
7) Rodney Harrison
8) Carnell Lake
9) Darren Sharper
10) Leroy Butler

Best Teams of My Lifetime:

1) 1989 San Francisco 49ers
2) '99 St. Louis Rams
3) '92 Dallas Cowboys
4) '96 Green Bay Packers
5) '07 New England Patriots
6) '03 New England Patriots
7) '98 Denver Broncos
8) '91 Washington Redskins
9) 2010 Green Bay Packers
10) '04 Pittsburgh Steelers
11) '94 San Francisco 49ers
12) '01 St. Louis Rams
13) '00 Baltimore Ravens
14) '05 Indianapolis Colts
15) '04 New England Patriots
16) '98 Minnesota Vikings
17) '90 Buffalo Bills
18) '02 Tampa Bay Buccaneers
19) '93 Dallas Cowboys
20) '06 San Diego Chargers

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And, finally, #59 on Professional Photographer's list of the "100 Most Influential Photographers of All Time:" Horst P. Horst

The German-born Horst had the good luck to meet the star photographer of Vogue, George Hoyningen-Huene, in 1930 Paris. Huene became his mentor, companion, boss. Through him, Horst met the creme of international culture: Cocteau, Chanel, Cole Porter, etc. After a period in America, he became a hot, in-demand photographer for French Vogue, capturing some of the great artists of the time: Dali, Dietrich, Gertrude Stein. His range encompassed many styles: film noir, Bauhaus, Surrealism, Greek classicism, Baroque romanticism. His subjects posed formally, mannered-ly. He used light and shadow triumphantly, often incorporating the shadow left by the model. During the second world war, he fought in the U.S. Army (!) and was afterwards taken on by American Vogue.