The Review Revolution: Improving Culture through Kvetching

Reality Shows for the Whole Family

One of the family rules in the Riess-Smith household is that no one, and I mean no one, will ever volunteer anyone else to be on a reality show.  No supernanny is ever going to tsk-tsk if we lose our tempers at home, and no one's going to videotape us shopping for our usual fashion-challenged clothes.   Our garage is not fodder for the organizing gurus of Clean Sweep.  We like our privacy.

Still, that doesn't mean that we don't engage in weekly rituals of schadenfreude by watching other people embarrass themselves on TV.  In fact, this is a prime family bonding activity.  I'd like to tell you about two of our favorite reality shows that we watch as a family.

Grime Doesn't Pay! 

The basic premise of How Clean Is Your House? is that there are some truly filthy people out there.  Most of them appear to live in England. On this show, which is broadcast on BBC America, two funny British ladies tool around the UK to scold people about how unbelievably dirty their homes are.  Some of the homeowners have not cleaned in years; others have never even attempted it and wouldn't know where to start.  We're not just talking about dirty dishes in the sink here.  We're talking full-on muck -- people who don't take the garbage out, whose breadboxes provide a cozy refuge for mice and their droppings, who don't even clean up after their pet has peed on the floor. 

It's a fun show, actually, because as a family we look at the horrors of these people's homes and say "eeeeeewww" together on cue.  We cuddle up close together and congratulate ourselves that although our house is far from squeaky-clean, we're nowhere near as nasty as those people on TV.  Making viewers feel better about themselves is, of course, is the goal of any reality show worth its salt.

One of the interesting things about How Clean Is Your House? is that it's such a throwback to a century ago.  In the early 20th century, as doctors became more aware of the health dangers of germs and mold and dirt, society embarked on a crusade to educate people about cleanliness.  An important aspect of this show is the lab cultures that are taken from these dirty buggers' sinks, cooktops, toilet seats, and toothbrushes--Aggie dons an official-looking white lab coat and teaches the homeowners (through extended camera shots of fecund petri dishes) about all the dangerous microorganisms that they're unwittingly spawning.   A bonus of this segment of the show is that we like to hear the schoolmarmish, Scottish Aggie screech the word "bacteeeeria."

There's also a simple innocence to this program.  If there were an American version, some designer would say, "This house is revolting.  We need to rip it out to the studs and start all over again."  But on HCIYH, no one ever really goes out shopping for new stuff.  The decor is often just as tacky as ever (think Dolores Umbridge mixed with bowling trophies), but it's all clean as a whistle.  Also, many of the cleaning remedies just use the ordinary things you'd find at home -- dish liquid, baking soda, white vinegar, and the like. 

"Make It Bigger, Make It Badder, Make It Awesome"

The other excellent show we like to watch together as a family is Ace of Cakes, which comes on the Food Network.  (Sorry to those of you poor sods who don't have cable.)  Every episode of this reality show chronicles a week in the life of a Baltimore bakery run by a bunch of Gen X-ers with a quirky sense of humor.  The first time I ever saw the show, the office manager person, Mary Alice, was wearing a t-shirt that read, "Joss Whedon is my master now."  So I knew right away that I would like the show, and she and I would be BFFs.

Besides the humor, another draw for Phil is that they use power tools to make these incredible cakes -- the Brooklyn Bridge, or King Kong about to devour a bar mitzvah boy, or Wrigley Field.  Any show that mandates the creative use of a drill saw and blow torch is pretty much Must-See TV for my husband.  Jerusha likes it because she is artistic and the cakes these folks come up with are mind-blowing and often very beautiful.  It's great to see the whole process, from schematic drawings to finished product.  And, of course, to see the gratifyingly stupefied reactions of the folks who ordered the cake. 

Remembering Madeleine L'Engle

As many of you know, Madeleine L'Engle passed away into eternity a couple of weeks ago.  I am happy for her but sad for the rest of us, who won't have another L'Engle book to look forward to.  I was surprised by the strength of my feelings and wound up writing a personal essay about my interactions with her.  It was published in today's issue of PW Religion BookLine and if you are interested, you can access it here. 

What is your favorite Madeleine L'Engle book?  Mine is probably A House Like a Lotus.  A Ring of Endless Light is certainly up there, too.  And I love The Two-Part Invention, her book on marriage.  It's a tough call to say which is my absolute favorite.  There's one for every season, really.

ECLIPSE by Stephenie Meyer: Third Time is Not the Charm

Grade: C-

Bestselling author Stephenie Meyer is coming to Cincinnati tonight.  I will be there with bells on--or is that Bellas?--and anticipate an enormous crowd.  I was talking with one of the Joseph-Beth clerks last week and she told me she expects hundreds of people, including folks who are driving in from Louisville, Lexington, and Columbus.  My plan is to slink through the line and not quite meet Meyer's eye when she signs my book.  This is because I feel strangely guilty for not liking Eclipse, the third novel in the ongoing saga of Bella Swan and the monsters who love her.  I wanted to enjoy the book, or at least be seized by the same compulsion to read it that marked my outings with the first two; those were books I had some problems with (click here for my earlier blog reviews for Twilight and New Moon), but I was utterly fascinated by them.  With Eclipse, I read the first 200 pages or so on the first day it was released and then was easily able to put the book aside for weeks before I completed it.  I also had to will myself to finish, which surprised me greatly.

Why the dragging feet?  Well, the dragging pace had a lot to do with my lack of enthusiasm.  In the earlier books, Meyer created tight plots and demonstrated a natural talent for the "slow reveal" -- the mystery novelist's trick of giving the reader just enough information to keep her guessing and turning those pages.  Here, however, the pacing is a disaster.   Far too much of the novel is taken up with a juvenile love triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob.  This becomes tiresome because it is not balanced by equal attention to the actual plot of the novel: a coven of newborn vampires is loose in the city of Seattle, but Bella and the Cullens believe the newborns are heading to Forks.  We flit in and out of this exciting plotline to return to the soap opera of Jacob's many spats with Bella, who just wants to be friends with him, and Bella's misgivings about getting married (which seem awfully silly in comparison to her eagerness to become a newborn vampire who might cause death and destruction wherever she goes).  Ideas and characters dance in and out with no follow-up; we finally hear Rosalie's back story, for instance, but the information leads us nowhere and Rosalie all but vanishes after her moment in the spotlight.

This book has "haste" written all over it.  Not only is the novel too long by at least a hundred pages, it is rife with typos and small errors throughout.  Who edited this thing?  People expect more from Little, Brown, and certainly more from Stephenie Meyer.  Sadly, the whole promising plot of the newborn coven is dispensed with in a flash, and the much-touted Volturi appear and disappear without so much as a whimper.  The only real conflict in this plot is the overextended love triangle, and it's just not enough to sustain the novel.

I have already complained about the retrogressive gender roles in this series, and Eclipse doesn't go very far in erasing my anxieties.  Edward is still controlling and mercurial, though Bella gives him a lot of credit for "letting" her go to see Jacob at La Push.  Maybe Edward is the parent Bella never really had.  She still picks up socks and makes every meal for Charlie, who does not seem capable of the most rudimentary standards of self-care.  How did he survive before Bella came to live in Forks?  On the plus side, however, Meyer finally stops merely telling us that Bella is clever and perceptive and begins showing us scenes where Bella is the first person to figure out a clue or lead.  It's about freakin' time.

I'm disappointed, as I had such high hopes for this book.  I marked real progress in Meyer's writing ability between Twilight and New Moon.  Perhaps she is having a delayed version of the all-too-common sophomore slump that many novelists experience -- especially very successful ones.  I think the real culprit is that this half-baked novel simply didn't get the loving attention and revisions it richly deserved.  Meyer is fantastically busy with promotions, fans, websites, book tours, and of course being a mom. 

If I did get up the courage to raise my head tonight and say one thing to her, it would be this: take a break.  The Twilight series is all about moral choice, and you now face one: If you want to be a bestselling author, all you have to do is already here in this installment.  Essentially, you only have to show up.  If you want to be a writer, you need to do more.  Take all the time you need.  You are so talented that your fans will gladly wait for you to return to form with Breaking Dawn.  Your books do not need to be stairstep children, with one released every year.  Make them special.

Toujours La Slayere! Or Something Like That

I got a big surprise in the mail today--six copies of What Would Buffy Do?, which has been  translated into French.  I did not know that a French-language edition was in the works, so this was like opening a box of bon bons from a stranger.  Quelle sorprese or something.  (I am struggling to remember the graduate school crash course in French I took at Princeton U.  Oddly, we did not seem to study terms like vampire, Slayer and "jump the shark.")  I am utterly tickled by the book and find it every kind of funny.

On Friday I finished a long-overdue letter to my French pen pal, so now I will stick the book in with the letter and some family photos.  She and I have been writing since we were 11 and 12, respectively, and have been to visit one another.  The food was much better at her house.  She is wonderful and I think she will get a huge kick out of the book, as she is often hinting that I need to try writing her in French.