I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: HEYWOOD BANKS-“Toast” (1995).

I found this song when I was reading an article about Chris Christie.  Someone said he’s toast after his recent scandal.  And someone else posted this video.  Evidently it is taken from a morning radio show (ew), but the song is funny despite the morning nimrods laughing along.

I prefer the audio quality of the radio version, but I like this live version better (the dark toast intolerant joke is very funny (it’s new to this version)–as is the punchline to the Eifel Tower verse).

The excitement that he brings to this nonsense is wonderful.

[READ: September 20, 2013] Who Could That Be at This Hour?

I have a few books lingering around from last year that I have yet to write about.  This is one of them.  I’m not sure how a book gets neglected in my writing.  Usually I feel like I need to devote some time to it and I feel like I don’t have enough time at the moment.  And then it gets pushed back and back until months have gone by and then I wind up writing a half-assed review anyhow.

Alas.

So this begins a new series from Lemony Snicket.  It is a prequel to A Series of Unfortunate Events, but it is a very early prequel.  The main character is a thirteen year old Lemony Snicket who has just finished school and is on his way to a certain destination when all of his plans are thwarted.  And the way the opening is written is confusing and funny at the same time.  Like, “You’ll see her soon enough in any case, I thought, incorrectly.”  Or that he is given a note from a stranger which says to go out the bathroom window.  When he gets into the bathroom he finds a small package: “It was a folding ladder.  I knew it was there.  I’d put it there myself.”  Young Snicket is sitting with his parents–they insist he drink his tea while he waits for the train.  But while he is waiting, a woman breezes into the station and drops a note in his lap.

The mysterious letter writer turns out to be S. Theodora Markson.  She is to be Snicket’s chaperone.  Snicket uses the “a word which here means…” trick from the Unfortunate books but there’s a funny twist

“I’m contrite, I said, a word which here means–”
“You already said you were sorry,” S. Theodora Markson said.  “Don’t repeat yourself.  It’s not only repetitive, it’s redundant and people have heard it before.”

Another running joke is that Snicket keeps asking her what the S. stands for and she answers things like “Stop asking the wrong questions.”  As the first chapter draws to a close, S. Theodora says that his parents had the tea was spiked with sleeping pills.  He tells her that they weren’t his parents.  What?

In addition to there being funny confusing lines there are also laugh at loud funny lines like”

There are two good reasons to put your napkin in your lap.  One is that food might spill on your lap, and it is better to stain the napkin than your clothing.  The other is that it can serve as perfect hiding place. Practically nobody is nosy enough to take the napkin off a lap to see what is hidden there.

or

“Roadster,” I knew was a fancy word for”car” and I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of person would take the time to write “roadster” when the word “car” would do.

They eventually wind up going to the Hotel Lost Arms with the host Prosper Lost.  There’s also two little boys who are driving their dad’s taxi–Pecuchet and Bouvard Bellerphon.  They drive for tips and Snicket gives them a tip to read the book about the champion of the world–which they appreciate.

And that’s all chapter one–a perfectly funny, slightly unsettling chapter that sets us up for a wondrous (and rather silly, it seems) mystery in the town of Stan’d-by-the-Sea.  The plot is that Mrs Murphy Sallis has called upon their assistance to retrieve a priceless item which has been stolen–a small statue about the size of a bottle of mile. It is shiny and black.  It is of the Bombinating Beast.  She knows it was stolen but not when.  Theodora immediately looks at the ceiling and determines that the thief dropped down from the ceiling and then resealed the ceiling with paint.  It is preposterous.

But Mrs Sallis says she knows who stole it.  The Mallahan family–enemies of her family for many lifetimes.  But she doesn’t want to upset them because “they’re nice people.”

S. Theoodra and Lemony stay in a hotel, but Snicket goes on a clue hint and stops in a lighthouse where he meets young Moxie Mallahan, a young girl who is writing the news for her own newspaper, since the town newspaper The Stain’d Lighthouse had gone out of business.

S. Theodroa comes running up and tells Snicket to get away from the girl.  And then speculates that the Bombinating Beast is in that very lighthouse.  He agrees.  Because he saw it there.  But S. Theodora is (again) insulting to him and “that flatfooted girl.”

Snicket make very good use of the local library (and the weird sub-librarian Dashiell Qwerty “he had the hairstyle of one who gets attacked by a scissors-carrying maniac and lives to tell the tale.”  It is in the library that we learn about the Bombinating Beast–half horse, half shark (although some legends say half alligator, half bear).  We also learn that bombinating means buzzing.

But Snicket is distrubed in the library by a boy named Stew who throws rocks at him (in the library!).  Snicket is forced to leave.  And soon he meets the Officers Mitchum (Harvey and Mimi who squabble more than they detect).

Eventually Snicket goes to see Moxie but she knows he’s after the Beast in her lighthouse.  And she allows him to take it.  And so he follow S. Theodora’s plans and goes out the window on a rope.  But he plummets to the grournd (saved by a tree) where he meets Ellington Feint.  Ellington is a young girl who lives by herself and consumes outrageous amounts of coffee.  She also seems to own Black Cat Coffee the only business in town that’s still open.  There’s even a machine that makes coffee and toast (the buttons on it are A, B and C.  C stands for Coffee.  B stands for bread and A stands for…. attic.  Which opens up a secret panels when the button is pushed.

And from there things get even weirder.  There’s red herrings all over the place (although not literal herrings), there’s people pretending to be who they are not, there’s theft upon theft upon theft of the Beast and there are lies and deceits everywhere (how Snicket kept the story straight is  mystery in itself).

By the end of the story crosses and double crosses are so common its hard to even know what happened even when Snicket tells us flat out. And things get even weirder when Snicket’s confidant Hector says, “Your plan to choose the worst chaperone so you can secretly–”

Oh and one of the people in the story is Snicket’s sister.

The book has wonderful artwork by Seth. His bold lines really capture the noir feeling of the story.  Each chapter heading has a small picture and within each chapter is full page illustration. And of course the cover is beauteous and eye catcrhing too.  Motsly Seth uses blues and blacks, but there are other splashes of color too.  He’s a good pairing with Lemony Snicket and I’m really looking forward to book 2 (which I see is out now).

You can also check out the website for some fun and more art by Seth.

“Scolding must be very, very fun otherwise children would be allowed to do it.”–Lemony Snicket