Under the influence

Absolutely Fabulous is on our screens here in Oz at the moment and as soon as I hear the theme song I am cast back to the early - mid 1990s and reminded of how scandalous and ground-breaking it was when first released.  I am also reminded of how much I admired Jennifer Saunders’ Edina, who I believed (had she been a real person) was never as vacuous, vague or unattractive, as Saunders tried to make her.

In fact, I aspired to be her.  I envied her frivolity and loved her look, and as I was in my 20s at the time, I suspect her fashions would have been more forgivable on me.  Had my (then-dyed brown) hair been long enough I would have been sporting a brown spiral perm myself.

Like so many others, I have to admit to a tendency to being easily swayed when it comes to fashion or fads.

My first memory of this affliction is tied to Young Talent Time, a childhood favourite.  In my defence, in the 1970s TV viewing options were limited in regional Australia, so frankly any show catering for kids was a bonus.  At the time my parents wouldn’t let me have long boots, but it wasn’t long before I realised that my YTT faves, Sally Boyden and Karen Knowles, were in fact wearing white sandshoes and long white socks – to look like boots (or perhaps just for comfort).  I realised I could do that.  And often did.

As I was finishing primary school, Grease hit our shores and screens.  After a brief flirtation as ‘nice Sandy’ (blonde bob a la Sandra Dee), I somehow convinced my mother to let me have a perm and suddenly – at 12 or 13 years of age – I was bad Sandy, sans the black lycra ‘You’re The One That I Want’ outfit.  Of course.

[caption id="attachment_463" align="alignright" width="210" caption="Me back in the day - a Princess Di wannabe (had the curling wand working overtime!)"][/caption]

Princess Di was probably my next fashion idol and like many others throughout the world I cloned her hairdo.  For a while anyway.

Olivia Newton John’s Physical debuted the same year and I diligently added a headband to my Diana cut and wore leggings and layers of ill-fitting sweatshirts.

By the time I finished high school in the mid 1980s I was channelling a favourite Dolly magazine model and had a spiral perm to match.  WHAM had asked us to CHOOSE LIFE and although I didn’t have the t-shirt, I had my fair share of fluorescent clothing.

By the 1990s, I’d dyed my hair dark and put on more weight than I’d liked.  I bought my first pair of Doc Marten boots and flounced about in my Docs/baby doll dress combo.  Just like the girls in the original Beverly Hills 90210. (ie. The normal-sized Brenda, Kelly and Donna, not the skeletal lollipop-like ones in the remake!)

[caption id="attachment_464" align="alignleft" width="210" caption="Louise Lombard as Evie in The House of Eliott"][/caption]

Then it was Ab Fab and Edina, as well as BBC’s House of Eliott.  Although desperate to emulate Edina (and in all honesty, who wouldn’t be?) I was entranced by Louise Lombard’s Evie – and frankly in the early 1990s my hair was more suited to an Evie do rather than an Edina do.  So I attempted the clean sleek lines of the 1920s flapper.

Something happened after that and I found myself spurning the likes of Melrose Place and Friends and stoically avoided the Rachel ‘do’.  Or maybe I just grew up. In reality, I went to live in Africa and Asia and came home less inclined to follow the crowd.

Although… I must admit, while I’m now unlikely to be as committed to mimicking the style of others, I am – on occasions – still prone to falling prey to the influence of others.  I have a hair appointment tomorrow, and although I know my hairdresser doesn’t ‘do’ perms I am thinking of taking a picture of Scarlett Johansson’s tousled OSCARS bob to see what they can do – and hope I don’t get laughed out of the salon!

(Don't) call me

I was catching up on my Twitter news today when I came across this link and it reminded me of a conversation I had with my mother at Christmas.

As regular readers of this blog (yes, all 3 of you) will know, my parents were staying here over Christmas while my father underwent radiotherapy.  Throughout that time there was a similar stream of concerned calls.  Most came when I was at work so my mother dealt with them, but quite early on we established the fact that – if the phone rang, even in the evening – it was almost certainly for them as absolutely nobody ever calls me.

And I’m not saying that like it’s a bad thing.

I am on the DO NOT CALL register so don’t receive the pesky telemarketing calls; on the rare occasion my brother or sister-in-law call, it is usually expected or about some upcoming event; and the only calls I do get are from my parents.  As they were with me at the time it was unlikely to be them. Obviously.

The lack of calls is not a one-way thing.  I don’t encourage anyone to call me and I certainly don’t indulge in the practice much myself nowadays (other than to my parents).

I do everything by email. In fact my hatred of telephoning people is such that I had some medical referrals which were almost out of date because I delayed making the call to the specialist to book an appointment (the referrals were only valid for 1 year!).  In fact I find myself increasingly excited that appointments can be made online or via email.

At work I email requests to people ostensibly so I have a record of response and so forth, but really the written word is more in my comfort zone. I enjoy pounding out a sentence or two on the keyboard; much more so than picking up the phone to ask the same question or give the same direction.  In all honestly I’m not sure when this aversion to telephone calls started.  I mean I can, by all accounts, talk the hind legs off a donkey, so it isn’t entirely about a lack of sociability.  I’m not sure why, I just don’t like the immediacy and hassle of telephone calls unless I have no other choice.

I keep in contact with my closest friends by email.  I send epic tomes of my day-to-day happenings and they send similar updates.  And then (of course) there’s Facebook and Twitter for the really important stuff.

Last weekend my late afternoon DVD-viewing of ‘Easy A’ was rudely interrupted by a person of some religious persuasion ringing my doorbell to sell me eternal life.  I said thanks very much but I didn’t have any money on me at the moment.  More shocking than his casual attire and self-effacing manner was the fact he appeared at all.

I am in an apartment complex and rarely receive those kind of visitors.  In fact when my doorbell rang I considered ignoring it completely as I don’t (like EVER ever) get unannounced visitors.  Of course I felt compelled to share the visit (and my shock over his visit) with my FB friends.  A number of others also commented that they don’t open the door if they aren’t expecting anyone. I was relieved that my hermit-like behavior hadn’t completely taken over my life.  To myself then and to many of my friends, ignoring unexpected visitors or calls is the norm, but I can’t help comparing it with my parents who have people ‘popping’ in all of the time.  My mother has cakes and slices at the ready to feed any unexpected guests.  Is it a small-town thing I wonder, or a generational thing?

I think of myself as being quite ‘difficult’ by not wanting to speak to people by phone or receive unexpected visitors, but it seems – from the NY Times article and friends’ comments – that I may not be as abnormal as I think.  Perhaps it isn’t that we live in impersonal times where human connections are fading; perhaps it is because we now have a choice.  We have less intrusive options at our fingertips. We email to confirm dinner arrangements; we receive SMS appointment reminders. Contact can be made when it suits both parties and no dinners get cold because of an ill-timed phone call. Frankly I’m relieved that it’s not just me.  For a change.

The lost art of the gumshoe (Part 2)

Once I discovered Robert B Parker I devoured everything he’d written.

Fortunately for me, Parker was a prolific writer and I had 35 years of novels to catch up on.  It’s hard to describe what I found - and continue to find - so addictive about his work. There are no tricks, no fireworks, just witty banter, quirky and complicated multi-dimensional characters and a simple, but full-of-twists plot.

Spenser and his world were so vivid and alluring to me that I couldn’t help but wonder how they would translate onto celluloid: I wanted to see my wise-cracking PI on the screen.  But of course, as is usually the case, someone else had this brain-wave before me.

The TV Series, Spenser for Hire, ran from 1985-88 and was, by all accounts a disappointment.  Especially for Parker fans.  Reviews quote Robert Urich as being woefully miscast as the enigmatic and witty Spenser.  The series came across as a stock standard TV detective show, with none of the wit and banter of Parker’s dialogue being translated onto the screen.  Apparently the only character to come away unscathed was Hawk, who featured in a brief TV spin-off.

Spenser apparently again featured in a series of TV movies in the late 90s and early 2000s, which I am loath to find for fear of the aforementioned disappointment.

In 1997 Parker introduced readers to Jesse Stone, a flawed, alcoholic Californian homicide detective who is reborn as a small town police chief.  Parker’s stable of characters grew again in 1999 through the introduction of a series featuring Sunny Randall, a Boston female PI.

While I am not as devoted to the new series, again, Parker provides us with seemingly simple characters who, beneath their flawed surface, have layers of angst and a strong commitment to justice.  Like Spenser, both bend the rules to ensure that good wins out over evil, or right over wrong in the end.  Interestingly also, a number of support characters feature in all three series and I have to admit to some sense of satisfaction (or closure) when Randall and Stone actually end up meeting…. as if I had a hand in their match-making.

Prior to his rebirth in television’s Blue Bloods, Tom Selleck appeared in a number of “Jesse Stone” TV movies which really didn’t break any new ground, though were sufficiently entertaining for 10pm on a Saturday night.  We are yet to see Sunny Randall on screen, although on his website Parker noted (at the time) that he created the character following a request from actress Helen Hunt for a strong female crime fighter role.  Perhaps the fate of Spenser and Stone in their transition to ‘talkies’ gave Hunt pause for thought.

In 2005 Parker diversified into westerns, launching a new series starting with Appaloosa. Again it appears that someone thought his work would translate onto the screen and a feature film starring Viggo Mortenson, Ed Harris and Renee Zellweger was released in 2008.

If I have one criticism of Parker’s novels, it is his non-lead female characters, namely Spenser’s love-of-his-life, the psychologist with the (much talked-about) Harvard PhD; and the cheating, sleeping-her-way-to-the-top, ex-wife of Jesse Stone. They come across as smug, manipulative and self-satisfied, making the leading men in their lives, too yielding and doting – attributes which don’t gel with their characters.  These women irk me enough to make me wonder about Parker’s perception of the fairer sex, which is interesting because (to the best of my knowledge) the author dedicated most, if not all, of his books to his wife Joan.

Although Parker won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his work, Edith Wharton: A Biography, it is not surprising that his more recent work has not been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.  He does however, fair better than the likes of James Patterson in balancing quality with quantity.  And even Parker’s weakest novels are appealing and very readable.  Although some reviewers believe his Spenser novels aren’t as compelling as they once were, I find his voice unchanged as Spenser remains a loveable smart arse and Parker’s continues to deliver his tongue-in-cheek and occasionally self-deprecating prose.

Her desk was beside a door that led to the office of the department chairperson. I knew that at once, because I am a trained investigator and the sign of the pebbled-glass door said Office of the Department Chairperson”

Painted Ladies (p. 43) 2010 GP Putnam’s & Sons (Penguin Group)

The best thing about becoming a Robert B Parker convert 35 years after he’d released his first book was the dearth of novels available through libraries and second hand bookshops.  I also found myself stalking his website for some time, waiting for my next installment of Spenser (or Jesse or Sunny). Although in existence for 40 human years, Spenser barely aged in literary years.  One could almost be forgiven for thinking he may just go on forever.  Almost.

Perhaps that was why I was so stricken when I logged onto his website early last year only to discover that Robert B Parker had in fact passed away some months earlier. When he died on 18 January 2010 he was 77 years of age and had written over 60 books.