Reading Jane

Locked away for a period of a month recently I realized I wouldn’t be able to read in my normal manner – in which I can easily read a book a night.  With my luggage space and weight limited I decided, therefore, to take with me a book I was given about 10 years ago but had been afforded no more than a quick glance in that time.

The Complete Novels of Jane Austen, as the title suggests, comprises (all) seven of Jane’s completed novels.  Four of these (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma) were published during her lifetime and two after her death (Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.).  The seventh novel in the tome includes an early composition titled Lady Susan.

Dare I admit that this is the first time I have read Jane Austen?  I have seen many of the books translated onto celluloid, both on the big and small screen.  Like hordes of others, the BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice is a favourite of mine (and not just for the Colin Firth-coming-out-of-the-water-in-his-wet-shirt factor).  Though Firth’s Mr Darcy is everything Mr Darcy should be.  Handsome, but cold and brooding and Firth does it beautifully.  I am unable to watch subsequent versions as I don’t think any other Mr Darcys could compare.  Nor do I want them to.

But on paper, Austen’s writing is not what I imagined.  She was surely a fan of the why-say-something-in-10 words-if-you-can-say-it-in-100 school of writing.  Of course I realise that her turns of phrase must reflect the era in which she lived, where the conversations and commentaries were incredibly polite, and where passive voice was appreciated (unlike my computer’s grammar-checks!). 

What I hadn’t imagined was that so much of her narrative would be buried in lengthy and meandering paragraphs.  The challenge this provides me is of my own making and uncovers a terrible (terrible) habit.  I skim-read.  I commonly scan a page quickly until I find what I need, which I suspect is how I can read so quickly and prolifically.  As someone who enjoys writing (note that I would not describe myself as a writer) I understand that this is an affront to writers and authors who painstakingly piece together words and lyrical prose to entertain readers.  This unfortunate habit of mine, means that some authors, such as Tim Winton (whose inspired prose is, indeed, beautiful) are wasted on me.  I wonder if this habit is because I am an auditory thinker.  I hear words and storylines rather than visualize them.  I similarly fast-forward DVDs and taped-TV for the same reason - just to get to the ‘action’.  (Note here that I am not implying I am a fan of action-movies, as I am most certainly not.  I mean the next phase of the plot.)

I am aware that Austen has been analysed and critiqued to death, so I am not intending to do so here.  Merely just voicing my own thoughts as I find my interest piqued by her work.  Nor am I going to dissect her characters, either for my own pleasure; or to get an idea of what Jane herself, a lifelong ‘spinster’ (like myself) was like. 

Certainly she was able to write about love and romance, about loss and heartbreak.  Many of her female characters were strong and independent women, her men seemingly either pleasant and outgoing or strong and silent.  But she did not pull punches in developing some flighty, vacuous or socially and financially-ambitious characters – both male and female.  Though I said I wouldn’t extrapolate to Austen’s own personality, I have to say it is clear that, as a woman and as a writer, she did not suffer fools gladly.

Though I know little (and haven’t done the research – for that was not the point of reading her work, or writing this blog) of her life, it seems that she based much of her writing on her own experiences and on those around her.  She is reputed to have fallen in love once or twice.  Firstly to Tom Lefroy – the more public of her dalliances, but her sister wrote of a subsequent relationship (when Jane was 30) where the man in question died suddenly.  Apparently she later accepted a proposal from a wealthy landowner but rescinded her acceptance the next morning and was devastated by the whole episode.

Jane’s wit and sarcastic prose are evidence of her intelligent and observant life, but I wonder about her level of cynicism.  It seems she would have been comfortable around men and gotten to know them well – with 7 brothers and male boarders at the family rectory.  Indeed, as I described earlier she often pulled no punches when developing her male / female characters.  

I found it mildly disturbing when she switched from third person to a first person narrative style.  As an example, near the end of Mansfield Park, and the tale of Fanny Price, Austen writes, “My Fanny indeed at this very time, I have the satisfaction of knowing, must have been happy in spite of everything….”  As if there has been a narrator present between the pages all along. 

Similarly, once we past the crisis in the storyline, she wraps the novel up quickly – rather than allow us to bask in the ‘happily-ever-after’ ending.  As if she became bored with the story – and Mr Darcy again asks Elizabeth to marry him, she says yes, blah blah and they live happily ever after.  This style coupled with her occasional popping in as the narrator makes it seem as if she is relaying a true account and feels obliged to fit a lot of detail in the final pages to be true to the subject at hand.

Perhaps it is her lack of ‘happily-ever-after’ that caused her to gloss over that bit in her novels.  Perhaps she just got bored with her characters.  Who knows?  What surprised me was what page-turners the novels were (with the exception of Lady Susan – written as a series of letters and when Jane was only 20yrs old - so I will forgive her that one).

The novels have reignited my interest in Jane and I have since re-watched some TV/movie adaptations of her work.  Indeed, the tome will also become one of my many novels which I will read over and over again.  

I suspect I thought of Jane Austen as some sort of Barbara Cartland of her era.  Instead I am struck by how clever she was and how insightful her social commentary was given the role she was afforded in a society in which her name could not even appear on her published manuscripts. 

Jane was 41 years old when she died in 1817.  My age.  And that makes me sad.  For her and for me.  Her life and potential snuffed out prematurely.  And the question going begging…. what do I have to show for my 41 years?

Addiction

I am, as it happens, obsessive by nature.  My addictions come and go and range from the unhealthy – champagne, red wine, caramel filling, chocolate, to the healthier – watching episode upon episode of my latest favourite TV show, or reading book after book.

There are some things of which I cannot get enough.  For a while (on the healthy side of the scale) I read incessantly.  I inhaled novel after novel.  Some good, some not-so-good and some pretty crappy.  (I do however have SOME standards, so there were a few returned to the library unread!)

The Twilight series I found bizarrely addictive; the simplistic style of writing inviting me in so I needed to know more.  Needed to know what happened next.  I also have a habit of reading and re-reading my ‘comfort’ novels and I use them in the same way I use ‘comfort’ movies or TV shows, or ‘comfort’ food.

So, for I while I was reading between 7 and 10 novels a week.  And working fulltime.  I ignored favourite TV shows, scorned movies and DVDs or outings in general.  It was all about reading.

But more recently it has been TV that has taken my fancy.  Or more specifically, TV on DVD.  That way I don’t have to worry about pesky advertisements AND like all good addicts, instant gratification is mine as I don’t have to wait a week for the next installment.

I have been working through TV series on DVD for some time.  Some out of boredom while others have become an addiction and I cannot get enough of them.

I have recently discovered Dexter; Mad Men; True Blood, Firefly; Dead Like Me; and  Pushing Daisies this way.

Even more fulfilling to someone like me is when I discover something years after it actually commenced, which was the case when I stumbled across Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 2000.  Five seasons into its filming.  With (mostly) 22 episodes each season, I had hours of ready-made viewing at my beck and call and had to work out in advance how many hours I could possibly watch in a night; or over a weekend.

Of course this addiction – like so many others – does carry some risks.  Too many episodes without a break and you find yourself in West Wing dreams.  Or when you find yourself conversing in Buffy-speak (and people don’t know what you mean when you say you déjà-ed that vu!) you know that you have been ridiculously entrenched in the celluloid world of your own choosing.

My latest discovery is Entourage.  Though I had heard of it and its success, I hadn’t been tempted until I stumbled across the pilot episode on SBS (TV in Australia) recently.

Though I actively pursued Dexter Season 3 and will watch Mad Men Season 2 when it returns to my video store, I cannot get enough of Entourage.  Like Buffy or West Wing, I cannot wait for my next hit.  I have watched three seasons of the show in one week.  I would have watched more but some pesky customer has borrowed Season 4 and I am waitlisted.

I already know I have to buy it.  And I am – despite all accounts – fussy about the TV series in which I invest, having only procured Buffy; Sex and the City; West Wing; and Firefly to date.

Some shows I love – Dexter and Mad Men – but I know I won’t watch them again.  And again.  Entourage I will.  I already know this.  Though the storyline interests me, knowing what is coming won’t prevent me from re-watching.  Like Buffy and West Wing, it is the characters and the dialogue which draw me in and spit me back out.  Sated but ready and willing to take more.

Meanwhile, as I wait for Season 4 of Entourage to find its way back to the video store, I realise I need to start pacing myself.  Season 5 has only just been released and Season 6 is currently screening in the USA.  Soon I am going to have to wait.  Delay gratification.  Or just find my next drug of choice…..

Lollipop-heads and trout-pouts

Half a dozen or so years ago, the term lollipop-head was coined to describe the actresses and the A, B (and D) listers who became so thin that their heads looked disproportionately large compared to their bodies. It described the then-fashionable wafer-thin Sarah Michelle Geller, Olsen twin and Nicole Richie, amongst others.

Despite the continuing swarm of chupa-chup starlets (the chicks from the new Beverly Hills 90210 and The Hills whose names I refuse to learn; and the likes of yo-yoing Lindsay Lohan) we don’t hear the term as much. But as I watch a rather-thin Miley Cyrus gyrating around on television, I can’t help wondering how their scrawny necks cope with the mountain of hair they carry upon their seemingly-large chupa-chup heads.

The thinness thing is not new, nor does it seem that it will ever get ‘old’. Weight (loss and gain) remains the fodder of women’s magazines which guilelessly feature articles on excessive thinness and eating disorders beside those on how to lose 20kgs in a week.

Given my recent predilection for TV on DVD and the ability to watch months of television productions over a weekend, I am finding myself intrigued with those actresses who become thinner as the show progresses. I suspect the change is more evident when – like me – you watch the series in one fell-swoop, rather than from week to week where the difference is more subtle.

You read about the ‘peer pressure’ on set when everyone else is thin. But the phenomenon that also interests me is the change between the ‘pilot’ and the rest of the season. Presumably Directors and Producers select actors who impress them – for whatever reason (talent, looks etc). So it is interesting that the timelapse – however long – between the filming of a pilot and the rest of the first season can bring about dramatic changes and I wonder why the actresses feel this need to ‘streamline’.

I have just finished watching the first series of the 2003 show, Dead Like Me. Foisted upon me by the helpful assistant at my local Blockbuster video store, I find myself entranced by the show centred around a bunch of grim-reapers.

The actress playing the lead role, Ellen Muth, isn’t your typical starlet. Not stereotypically beautiful, Muth playing misfit George (who is killed by a falling toilet from a Russian Space Station) is perfectly cast as the apathetic 18-year old and delivers her deadpan lines in her own alluring way.

I noticed nothing unusual about her as the series commenced, but she became noticeably thinner as the season progressed. I wondered then, when she had started to change and if her twig-like body had previously been hidden because of its vanishing girth. With a naturally round face, the lollipop-head phrase could have been coined with Muth in mind. Mid season she bares her arms and I could ‘barely’ look. Her forearms were actually larger than her biceps and so thin that an ever-present large vein looked like a tattooed racing stripe on her upper arm. I cringed every time I looked.

But, as I was loving the show, I squinted through the remainder of episodes. In fact I liked the show so much I went online after I had finished watching Season 1, to get information about the second (and final) Season. I am not sure why it is I keep discovering shows on DVD which were axed years before – Firefly, Pushing Daisies, now Dead Like Me. If I was more self-obsessed I would think there was some cause and effect thing happening and it was all about me….?!

My extensive research (hurrah for Google) also uncovered a made-for-DVD movie of the show, filmed only this year. Interested, I clicked on the link to take me to the movie’s website and that was my moment of disappointment.

The website featured an interview with star of the show and (new) movie, Ellen Muth. Now 5-6 years since the Season 1, Muth (who purportedly is a member of Mensa, so should not be unduly influenced by inane Hollywood fads) has done the unthinkable. She has (hmm….how to put it politely….?) “had some work done”. In fact, it almost certainly appeared that she now has the apt-phrased ‘trout-pout’. Already blessed with full lips, Muth’s mouth is now over-inflated and ridiculously caricature-like on her face.

I don’t understand it. I am not generally opposed to plastic surgery (as long as one admits to it – cos otherwise it is basically lying. I often fantasise about botox but know I would feel obliged to admit it to anyone who asked. Or even anyone who didn’t! And, my upper lip is a tad thin, so sure a bit of inflation would be great – but I wouldn’t dare go there as we have oft-seen the disastrous results).

I – like most of those on this orb-we-call-earth – was a huge Meg Ryan fan. Until the plastic surgery debacle that resulted in her cute impish beauty becoming the inscrutable mask, which has seen most of her recent movies tank in a big way. I recall the release of Kate & Leopold (possibly the beginning of the end), and everyone’s horror at what she had done to herself – and her career. I can’t help wonder if Nicole Kidman’s current fascination for smooth skin will also see the demise of her career.

While the plastic surgery horror-stories are many, what intrigues me are those who don’t seem to realise how ridiculous they look. When it first aired, I was a fan of TV show, Cold Case. I recall much of Australia was smitten with Kathryn Morris – she of the barely-pinned-up hair, fragile features and porcelain skin. I wasn’t actually smitten, but I could see why people thought she was attractive. And then, somewhere along the line something happened. I cannot pinpoint exactly when, but when a new season of Cold Case started I innocently tuned in, only to be horrified by the TV-cop who was once a favourite. She was all lips. I couldn’t focus on anything else. Kathryn Morris’s face barely moved – there were no expressions, just these swollen things in the middle of her head pouting and slapping together. I haven’t been able to watch the show since.

Perhaps there is some scientific basis to it all. I wonder if the whole inflated-lips thing helps the lollipop-heads’ balance, or reduces the pressure on their tiny necks? Akin to a helium balloon on a piece of string? Hmmm…. something to ponder.

But for now, I am flummoxed. Having recently discovered Dead Like Me, I can’t help wondering when Hollywood’s obsession with homogenization resulted in the lead actor, Ellen Muth’s decision to go-the-way-of-others-before-her and adopt the trout-pout. I hope I can at least get through Season 2 before I am distracted by her oversized choppers! From all accounts the movie is a bit of a dud anyway!

Felicidades – parte dois*

When I first returned (from living in Mozambique in Africa in 1996) I attempted to retain what little Portuguese language I had learned. At the time there was a Brazilian soap opera on one of our TV stations. It was called Felicidades – essentially meaning happiness in Portuguese. While the show itself was typically soap opera-like, I fell in love with the word (rarely used in its plural form).

Although I continue to work in jobs that (by their very nature) require me to constantly be ‘available’ I have been considering cutting back my hours. And no, I don’t mean just to start only doing 8-9hr days, but rather working a 4 day week. I have done the sums and I cannot really afford this. But I am getting closer and closer to approaching my boss about it.

And I wonder now about the concept. Of happiness. I have just written about two women’s searches for happiness, in Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Eat, Pray, Love (EPL) and the movie (based on a book and featuring one of my favourite actresses, Dianne Lane), Under the Tuscan Sun.

I defended both as not being self-indulgent, superficial quests for ‘happiness’ or ‘meaning’ but rather attempts to regain some of the lives the two women had lost when they unwittingly lost themselves in failed marriages.

I have never been a big believer in the concept of happiness. I talk to my mother often of my ultimate quest for a sense of ‘contentment’ rather than happiness. To me happiness is fleeting – something experienced when you are presented with a nice meal or buy a new item or clothing. Contentment (to me) is less transient. It is more about our sense of ourselves, than derived from external sources.

Having said that, I do believe that unhappiness is less transient and more pervasive. I also believe it is possible to talk ourselves into unhappiness. One minute we are going along okay and then we look across the road and see someone else who has more, or better, and then we feel like we are missing out.

I am a walking-cliché. Constantly feeling discontented with my life, I constantly change things around me (usually jobs) searching for a possibly-unattainable state. I often describe my emotional state as bereft or melancholy rather than ‘unhappy’ which I think sounds as if someone has made me so. Sure, a lot of my discontentment is superficial or materialistic. I wish I had a bigger tv (as I am still living with the large black box instead of a flat-screen LCD or plasma tv), a new lounge suite, or fabulous rug. But, much of my malaise results from my lack of contentment with – well, me and what I have (or have not) achieved, what I do (and don’t do) with my time – essentially, how I live my life.

In EPL and Under the Tuscan Sun, both Elizabeth and Frances lost themselves in their marriages and it was only the end of that institution which led them to sit up and wonder where the hell ‘they’ were. I don’t have that excuse. Only in a work-sense have I had to compromise who I am and who I want to be. While I hate that I have always been single, I am fiercely independent so haven’t spend my life waiting for a partner. I have gotten on with things. But like Elizabeth and Frances, I find myself often wondering if there is anything ‘else’. I can’t help but wonder, “Is this it? Is this all there is?”

In the ‘war of generations’, we talk about Generation Y being even more self-absorbed than Gen X. I watched something recently where a ‘Baby Boomer’ – the generation who led the fight for rights which we now take for granted – called Gen X & Y the ‘I want it all’ generations.

I agree that we are becoming more and more demanding. Not just of others and of service and technology, but also of ourselves. We expect to be happy. Here in 2009, in some time-warped anomaly, we want the material possessions of the greed-is-good culture of the 1980s and we expect the fulfillment of the navel-gazing 1960s.

Once we scoffed at those who stopped and pondered on the point of it all. They were the hippy-wannabes or those who dropped out of life to live on the poverty line as potters or poets. We judged them and suspected that – clad in tie-died kaftans – they weren’t really happy, just constantly too stoned to know any better.

But in the dawn of the new millennium we are taking stock of our lives. In a post-September 11-world which has become more and more demanding (we are always at the other end of electronic media and constantly available), it isn’t only the disenfranchised and the recent divorcees who are poised at the precipice for change.

Some of us are ‘down-sizing’ or taking a sea- or tree-change to improve the quality of our existence. We realise that it isn’t all about money. And we are making selfless choices to improve our environment and the lives of future generations.

I have mulled over the idea for years. But, as a single woman, it is hard to justify. I don’t have the standard excuses – study or children. But I want to make a statement – that my life is not entirely about work. I want to give myself time to do other things like exercise, writing, catching up with friends and just doing chores at home.

Unlike Elizabeth or Frances, it hasn’t really taken a crisis to bring me to this point, but a number of things, including my decision this year to try to have a child; and my (particularly confronting ) time at a fat camp recently.

So, love it or hate it, more and more of us are contemplating our lives. I can almost pinpoint those in my social-circle who will ask ‘why’ I would contemplate a 4-day week. It is easy to make fun of those who are searching for ‘meaning’, happiness or contentment, or even just trying to rediscover our lost selves. It is easy to roll your eyes at those who stop to ask themselves if they are happy.

But I think that asking if you are happy is akin to asking yourself if you are in love. If you have to ask, then you probably aren’t!

* Portuguese (hopefully)

Felicita – parte uno*

Why is it that (in novels and films) people have to ‘leave’ to find themselves? Perhaps that is the only reason the novel exists. If, for example, Mary Smith discovered a sense of her real self between making the kids lunches and vacuuming, she wouldn’t probably bother to document the journey. But, had she traveled purposefully across the country or the world to stave off her inner discontentedness, well… then she might have a bestseller on her hands.

Coincidentally I came across two of these journeys in a weekend recently.

I read the book Eat, Pray, Love (EPL) for the first time and I watched a rerun of the movie (from book of same name) Under the Tuscan Sun.

The same morning that I discovered EPL at my local library I came across an article – scathing in its disdain about society’s current search for happiness. Berating our expectation of happiness along with the myriad of self-help type books, the journalist quotes EPL as being a favourite of some Hollywood-types for whom the book is akin to an existential ‘how-to’ guide. It seems fateful then that I venture across the book later that day and borrow it to see what the fuss is about.

I tend to dislike non-fiction. Well, I actually hate it, and usually don’t go anywhere near it unless forced. When I scanned the book along with my library card, I had no idea that EPL was in fact non-fiction, until I read the cover on arrival home. Nevertheless, I decided I could battle on and see how far I could get before suffering disdain equal to that of the journalist or just giving up out of boredom.

I read it in one sitting. And I loved it. I don’t believe it to be a search of happiness – as blithely condemned by the aforementioned journalist. This implies a glib, superficial self-indulgent search for utopia, or something equally clichéd (Edina’s constantly-changing religions in Absolutely Fabulous comes to mind).

Perhaps if someone told me of the book’s premise, I would laugh. OMG…. A middle-aged well-educated woman suffering from an existential crisis goes to an Ashram in India. True, Elizabeth sounds like walking cliché of a divorcee going through a mid-life crisis.

But, to me, her search through the world’s ‘eyes’ – Italy, India and Indonesia, is actually more about her actually discovering her (lost) self rather than a superficial search for happiness or even some self-actualised meaning of life – despite some of her sources of intellectual and spiritual nourishment!

I read an interview with the author of EPL, Elizabeth Gilbert. She was asked if taking a year off to travel around the world to ‘find herself’ was selfish? I wonder about this question. The notion of selfishness implies that our acts negatively impinge on others. As a single thirty-something year old woman, with the finances to fund her journey I find it bizarre that anyone would question her motivations. We don’t question the selfishness of 20 year olds who want to backpack around the world. Why are the expectations of a 30 year old professional female so different?

a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26073312@N08/5105580631/" title="Under the tuscan sun by jovisala47, on Flickr">Similarly, Under the Tuscan Sun, features Frances, a bitter divorcee (do I sense a theme?!) who takes off and buys into a new life rather than returning to her old one.

Again it is about a woman trying to find her feet. Trying to find the person she may once have been, but no longer is.

In both the film and book, it takes a crisis for the two women to ‘act’. What does this mean for the rest of us? For those of us not really expecting a life of joy and happiness, but aware of the chunks missing from the jigsaw that is our existence.

Do we need to wait for a crisis? Or is the crisis itself the only reason we venture on such a journey? If there is no crisis, is there no rainbow?

And (crisis or not), is it possible to complete this search as we go about our everyday lives? In between our work, domestic and family commitments? Does this give us the time, energy and opportunity we need to take stock, or do we need to follow Frances’ and Elizabeth’s ‘selfish’ leads and take time out from our everyday lives.

Both of our heroines Elizabeth and Frances, ultimately live happily ever after, having successfully navigated their searches and peeled back the layers of their former lives to rediscover their selves. But, as is so often the case, it isn’t actually the rainbow at the end of the quest that provides them with the answers they seek. It is the journey through which they travel to get there. Frances’ eventual contentment in Tuscany is not arrived at despite the highs and lows during the restoration of her Italian villa, but because of them.

So, in addition to wondering if success is as sweet if there is no preceding bitterness, I wonder now if what we seek comes easily, would it be as fulfilling? Like a math problem, if we are given the answer without actually working out HOW to solve it, we are perhaps no better off than before...

* Italian (hopefully)

(Not) just a pretty face

I recently wrote (tongue in cheek) about my evolving taste in men. But I am afraid I have to admit that, while I am still primarily drawn to a man’s wit and intelligence, I still can’t go past a pretty face. Or more specifically, a handsome or sexy one.

I was confronted with my own hypocrisy a week after writing the other blog (http://rockafellaskank.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/the-fine-print/).  I flipped open a magazine from a weekly newspaper and there he was. Rupert Penry-Jones. Hmmmm, even the name is sexy (in a stuffy British way).

Beyond cute. And sexy. He’s both. And intelligent. Well, maybe not really, but he is in the TV Show, Spooks, where he plays Adam Carter, a MI5 Agent. I must admit at this point that I haven’t been watching the award-winning show. I watched the first two series and then when Penry-Jones’ predecessor (the popular Matthew Macfadyen) left I was disappointed. That was allayed when I laid eyes on the new star, Penry-Jones. But the excitement was short-lived when a wife appeared on the scene. A sharp-featured thin woman, I disliked her immediately and, with the loss of other characters I lost interest in the show. Having said that, Penry-Jones remains ridiculously sexy. (Of course, I discovered later that his on-screen wife was killed off. Damn! I missed out on hours of viewing pleasure…)

But it is nice to know I can still be flummoxed by a pretty face. I have to admit that, while I love Simon Baker’s quirky character in The Mentalist, I also watch the show because he is beautiful beyond belief. I don’t care that he is happily married and apparently sweet. He is stunning.

Similarly lovely is Gabriel Macht, who I discovered in the very-ordinary (but visually pleasing) Because I Said So, and appearing more recently in The Spirit. I find myself unable to decide whether he is cute or sexy, but then again – who cares?!

I should also admit at this point to a bit of a soft spot for Jeffrey Dean Morgan (who played the dying Denny in Grey’s Anatomy and the father in TV’s Supernatural). I was still watching Grey’s Anatomy when he appeared and, well… died. Single girlfriends and I complained bitterly after viewing the fairly-ordinary weepie, PS I Love You, in which Hilary Swank is not only widowed by the gorgeous Gerard Butler, but happens to stumble across Jeffrey as she tries to cope with her hubby’s death. I mean, how many gorgeous guys is one girl granted?!

While I’m at it, I have to confess to almost crying over Brad Pitt’s beauty as Benjamin Button. I mean, how can someone be so beautiful? (As the young Benjamin obviously, not the old one!)

Then of course there is George. While the oft-cited car-boot (car-trunk to non-Aussies) scene between Mr Clooney and Jennifer Lopez (in Out of Sight) caused some hot flushes, it was the hotel bar and ensuing bedroom scene that made me rethink the sexiness of a name like George.

Now, I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder – after all, while Blair Underwood can make me swoon; I still think Leonardo DiCaprio looks like a 15 year old; that Robert Pattison has a flat nose; and as for those boys from Gossip Girl….well, I just don’t get it.

But, after stumbling across Penry-Jones’ picture and giving the (what-attracts-me) matter more consideration, it was nice to be reminded that I am still a sucker for a pretty face.

So, while I no longer have pictures of Tom Cruise on my walls – as I did in the 1980s (and, I blame hair-perming chemicals for that lapse in judgment!) and I am not going to stalk Penry-Jones, Brad Pitt or George Clooney on Twitter, it’s kinda nice really – being this superficial. I was starting to worry I was a bit past all that.

TV or not TV

The facts are these…… I am fickle. This I will admit. When I was a young girl Charlie’s Angels, Bionic Woman, Starsky and Hutch had my heart – and my TV viewing hours.

My tastes have changed over the years. Matured – hopefully. Evolved – hopefully. Until today I find myself attracted with TV with intelligent scripts and witty dialogue. And a bit of an edge.

First there was Buffy, West Wing and Sex in the City. Then we were blessed with Weeds, Dexter and Mad Men. Original and quirky.

Well, quirky has a new name. And face. Having read about the show, last weekend I stumbled across Pushing Daisies at my local video store.

Commentated by voiceover with a dry, droll wit, Daisies features Ned, who learns at a young age, that he has the ability to bring the dead back to life. But like all good things (red wine and chocolate) there are negative consequences.

We first meet Ned as a child, where upon bringing his mother back to life, he inadvertently causes the death of his childhood sweetheart’s father; and upon a second touch, relegates his mother again to the afterlife.

We next meet the present-day Ned (aka the Pie-Maker) and his equally-quirky band of sidekicks at The Pie Hole.

Emmerson Cod, who most recently played the antagonistic and arrogant Edward Vogler on House, is a PI who, having discovered Ned’s secret exploits it for profit. By bringing the dead back to life (albeit briefly – having learnt his lesson from the double death of his mother) Ned and Emmerson can ask about the crime that led to the victim’s death, tell the cops and collect the reward. Well, sort of…

Daisies is well-served by its supporting cast of Anna Friel (as Ned’s grown-up childhood sweetheart, Chuck) and torch-carrying employee, Olive Snook (played with kooky charisma by West Wing’s Kristin Chenoweth).

The set and visual design of the show reflect its ‘larger-than-life’ theme. Like a big storybook, everything from the Pie Hole itself, to Olive and Chuck’s wardrobe is bright, colourful and almost cartoon-like.

Like many other underappreciated shows (Dexter and Mad Men), our doyens of taste (TV Executives) decided against rushing Pushing Daisies onto our screens. Instead, Channel Nine, having purchased the rights to the show, on-sold it to pay television after one year, where it screened for the first time in Australia in April this year.

I have previously complained about the fickle nature of TV Executives (which, unlike my own fickle taste, is highly unacceptable!):  http://rockafellaskank.wordpress.com/2009/02/15/benching-the-b-team-eli-army-wives-gossip-girl/

Unfortunately, despite its early success (the show was nominated for 22 Emmy Awards in 2008); it has since been axed, going the way of many-a-good-but-slightly-weird TV show.

However, all is not lost. The first season is now available on DVD and I have the second season to look forward to. I also have faith that more original and innovative boffins in TV- and movie-land will come up with my next viewing pleasure.