Back by popular demand....DEMAND, I SAY! No fewer than three fans of TAI have accosted me of late, urging me to spend some quality weeknight time freshening the face of this poor neglected blog....wow, is there nothing duller than reading a blog post belaboring how long-overdue it is?



Probably, and that would be my All-Twilight Edition of TicketStub! You thought you could escape this tweeny tsunami, but oh no, you cannot:


One part Dracula, one part True Love Waits PSA, with a big dollop of teen pheromone power, this adaptation hits the target audience sweetspot. The Twilight novels are monstrously addictive, but overwritten and lazily edited, like a bad junior high literary magazine. My expectations for the film version were somewhere between "pilot episode of a quickly-canceled CW soap" and "won't even watch it on a plane." The studio's brand new, the cast is anonymous, and the shoot was infamously grueling. What's more, I attended an opening-night screening packed with teen girls....alongside myself and my fellow thirtysomething ladies, of course. All signs point to "Mess." But amazingly enough, it was better than OK -- it was quite good! Now, I say that as a full-on Edward Cullen obsessive, one of thousands of adult English major types who've spent hours in shameless thrall to a teen beach book. I won't apologize for falling hard for Stephenie Meyer's modern-meets-immortal Mr. Darcy, but I expected the movie to be less Austenish and more Lost Boys-ish. Director Catherine Hardwicke is apparently a miracle worker, creating a serviceable silk purse from a literary sow's ear. She zeroes in on the teen lovers, literally zooming in too close on their faces, capturing the strange purity of youthful desire that only blooms when you have nothing else to do but be in love all day...or for all eternity, in Edward's case. This preposterous tale of a klutzy wallflower winning the stone dead heart of a foxy vampire prince could have been turned into hash, Garry Marshall style, so easily. Instead, we're treated to a thoughtful, realistic view of teenage emotion, shot through with fantasy. The dialogue sounds real, the rain looks real, and boy do the kisses seem real -- for an allegory about abstinence, the first smooch set the audience aflame remarkably well! Sure, it's pop, but it pops. The whole thing is nicely underplayed by (almost) everyone involved, so it rises from CW throwaway to great X Files-episode levels. Points off for some crap editing moments, weak fx (methinks due to budget constraints, hopefully removed by the boffo box office), and grating emo soundtrack choices...but bring on the sequel! (B)

It's always a good time for some Summertime Roadside Sightings!

1. Trotting across Trapelo Road in the afternoon sunshine, stoping traffic, smooth as you please, looking for a delicious garbage can or stray kittycat -- one rather glossy, non-malnourished-looking coyote.

2. Driving through Wellesley at 4pm on a weekday, I pass the corner of a well-manicured side street, at which are standing 3 or 4 women, waiting for a bus. Not to take them somewhere, though -- they're waiting for the schoolbus bringing their kids home from day camp, having walked down the shady street at exactly 3:50 and spending a few minutes chatting and leaning against a picket fence in the sun. Must be nice...if you like living in a Tom Perrotta novel.

3. On our way down to south Jersey on the Turnpike, we pass a crisp white airport van, stenciled with the name of the limo service on the side. Under the driver's side window, it reads cheerfully, "SAFE TRAVELS AND GODSPEED."

Hello out there in blogland, I am in fact still alive -- just working a lot more, and blogging a lot less. My "new" (six months and counting...) job has a piping hot firewall, from behind which I can't see any blogs, video, or "sleepwear and lingerie" sites...not so fun when you're looking to send a pajamagram!

My goal for the summer is to pick up TAI, dust it off, and get on a weekend posting schedule...we can dream. We also moved house and I am currently enjoying a huge walk-in closet, but the rest of my workspace is stacked with boxes labeled things like CRAFT JUNK and MORE BOOKS. Hmmmmm.

For your blogular enjoyment in the meantime, you should rely, as I do, on Nat instead. As of tomorrow we've been married for two years (!!) and we are still having fun, you can read all about it. :)

Time has been slipping slipping slipping, people...but the Index shall return! In the last few weeks, I've started an absolutely awesome new job, tweaked my back, reorganized every closet in the house, memorized a slew of new passwords, ate way too much Peterson's honey nut crunch, and so on and so forth. The awesome new job does not allow blogging, so my productivity is way up...just not around here. Roadside Sightings, movie roundup, and more on the way...foreals!

"David Dinkins and I are lucky that Rudy didn’t cast our portraits onto a bonfire along with the First Amendment, which he enjoyed violating daily." -- Here's the article I've been waiting for from the NYTimes, dredging up the hurlyburly of Rudy Giuliani's mayoralty, checkered as it was with political machinations, ruthlessness, and over $7 million paid out to settle civil rights lawsuits against his Administration. Just who we want in the Oval Office, right?