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Head Butler takes a holiday, but he’s left you many treats — don’t stay home without them!
By
Published: Aug 20, 2020
Category:
Holiday
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The last two weeks of August always take me by surprise. Where did the summer go? Can I grab a large helping of it in the two weeks when, as I usually say, the butler puts down his tray and takes his vacation? There have been summers when I’ve left my desk for a destination with water, sky, and a good reading light. More often I’ve used those two weeks for uninterrupted writing on a book/play/script.
This August? You know the story, you’re living it too. My personal details make these weeks more vivid. My daughter’s flying 3,000 miles to start college. My friends have mostly decamped, and the prospects of their return grow dimmer by the day. Unless I have a sudden fascination with outdoor dining, there’s no reason to go out. I’m 18 chapters into a book that should end around chapter 30. All the chapters are short, no more than 1,000 words. In two weeks, maybe….
This is a new feeling: I hesitate to take time off from Butler. The phrase that’s been running through my head the last few days is “less alone.” In the beginning of these wretched six months, I changed Butler’s focus and dealt with the pandemic; later, I focused on books, music and movies that affirmed the human enterprise. If I feel “less alone” now, the email friendships I have with many of you have been important. Let’s hope that absence really does make the heart fonder.
I never leave without stocking the larder. Too-frequent reminder: Butler is not a newsletter, it’s a site. There are 2,200 recommendations in the archives; a random tour of the categories of your interests should produce a pleasant surprise or two. As is my custom, I’ve assembled a few of my favorites here — books, movies and series I loved once and could happily revisit..
No seer lives here. I’m poor at predictions. But you don’t need psychic smarts to know that September and October are likely to be terrifying, inspiring, possibly dangerous — at the very least, a character test. As the Dylan song goes, “Take care of your health and get plenty of rest.” See you in September.
SERIES
Borgen
“Borgen” is shorthand for “the castle,” the home of the Danish Parliament and the government’s executive offices. It’s where Birgitte Nyborg —– in the series, Denmark’s first female prime minister –— spends every waking hour trying to keep the support of her modest majority and move the country forward. It’s not an easy task, and it’s not her only task. She’s married, with two children, and her husband and her kids also need attention.
Think: “West Wing” with a woman in charge. Think: 3 fascinating seasons. They’re coming to Netflix in September. You won’t mind owning and watching them now.
State of Play
“State of Play” starts simply. Sonia Baker falls to her death in a London tube station. Did she fall? Commit suicide? Or was she… pushed? That’s the last simple question in the mini-series. For, that same day, a kid gets killed in another part of London. No connection. Not possible, really — Sonia Baker was a young research assistant to Steven Collins, chairman of the prestigious Energy Select Committee. The kid? A nobody.
After the first episode, the reviewer for The Guardian wrote that “State of Play” is “bloody magic… If you can count the best dramas of recent years on the fingers of both hands, it’s time to grow a new finger.” Typical British understatement. [To buy the BLUE-RAY from Amazon, click here. Do not – no no no — buy the DVD. It will not play on American systems.]
FILMS
Local Hero
Burt Lancaster, an eccentric oilman, orders a young executive to purchase a quaint Scottish village as the site for a giant oil refinery. In our country, capitalism crushes all opposition most of the time. In Scotland, magic and mystery are still alive. Go there, see what life is like there, dream it can be your life — isn’t that what we so often do when we travel? Very funny, smart and, above all, wry.
Shoplifters
One of the 5 best films I’ve seen in this decade. A family in Tokyo. Daily life. It looks like nothing much is happening. Watch more intently. Something is definitely happening. Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, a major talent. [To buy the DVD or stream the film from Amazon, click here.]
Leave No Trace
They live in the woods. They’re not homeless.
[To buy the DVD or stream the film from Amazon, click here.]
The Death of Stalin
Sick and extremely funny, always a winning combination. [To buy the DVD or stream the film from Amazon, click here.]
BOOKS
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
Dwight Garner, the brilliant and trustworthy New York Times book critic, is not known to gush, and yet this is the first paragraph of a recent review: “’Caste’ is an extraordinary document, one that strikes me as an instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far. It made the back of my neck prickle from its first pages, and that feeling never went away.”
The Big Goodbye: ‘Chinatown’ and the Last Years of Hollywood
This is much, much more than the inside, untold story of the 1974 classic. There are great stories about Roman Polanski and Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, but this is also a great book about Los Angeles, once a desert, now an irrigated suburbia. Total page-turner.
Alice Munro: Dear Life
These aren’t really stories –— they’re compressed novels, entire lives told in 30 pages. Other writers do something like this, but I can’t think of another who does it within the apparent frame of a traditionally told story.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Love in the Time of Cholera
The story of “Cholera” takes the idea of postponed romance to an astonishing extreme. As the novel begins, Dr. Juvenal Urbino, now 81, has been married to Fermina Daza, 72, for more than half a century. He dies. Among the mourners at the funeral is Florentino Ariza. He is the last to leave. And he has a shocking announcement — an announcement he has waited half a century to make: “a vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love.”
Anne Lamott: Bird by Bird
You can dip into lots of books and tease out the instructions that apply to you, or you can take the easy way to learning about writing — you can read “Bird by Bird,” Anne Lamott’s much-cherished 1994 guide to writing. Or, to use her subtitle: “some instructions on writing and life.” Because, as it turns out, they go together —– your writing comes out of who you are, what you’ve experienced and believe and dream of.
JFK and Mary Meyer: A Love Story
Jack loved Mary (or so he said). Mary loved Jack. He got killed. Then she got killed. Her diary was burned. A novelist re-imagined it.
HOT STUFF
Nam Prik Asian Chili Sauce
Nam Prik (pronounced: nam-preek, literally “fluid chili”) isn’t like all the other smartly-labeled sauces you see on grocery shelves. It delivers fire and flavor, adding personality to eggs, Mexican food, Asian dishes, meat and chicken entrees. [To order from Amazon, click here. For recipes, click here.]
HEALTH
Lypo-Spheric Vitamin C
This is not the Vitamin C that you regularly take. That Vitamin C may be a wonderfully powerful nutrient. But most of the Vitamin C in pills or capsules never reaches the bloodstream. Estimates of its absorption rate are less than 50%. Lypo-Spheric Vitamin C has a 90% absorption rate. Lypo-Spheric Vitamin C isn’t cheap. Thirty packets cost more than a dollar per dose. The Amazon reviews are extremely positive. And, as I say, I no longer need to buy Kleenex. [To buy a 30 dose box of Lypo-Spheric Vitamin C, click here.]
Surviving the pandemic: Déjà vu all over again
Oximeters. Masks. Vitamins. Don’t stay home without them.
Anthelios Sunscreen with Mexoryl
Record heat in the West. Skin protection is key.
Tree Lotion CBD Cream
Of all the frauds being peddled today —– and the list would stretch from here to Kansas City — CBD products are in the top ten. Good news. If you ache…. If you are anxious and don’t want to medicate… if you’d like to be more chill at bedtime…I have found something of quality that works spectacularly for two people I know very well.
