An Embarrassment of Riches

Mankind and the Moon - by guest blogger Karen Brattain Our guest blogger is Karen Brattain, a freelance editor. She works for the scientific journal Astrobiology and has edited several books. She is a graduate of the Master's in Writing: Book Publishing program at Portland State University.

I tell everyone who will listen that I want to be the first copy editor in space. Two years of work for a journal that studies planets, moons, and stars has rubbed off on me and propelled my childhood interest in spaceflight to new heights.

Amazing spectacles fill the Cosmos. But I have come to feel that any story or study of the Universe is barren without us in it. The human element of space exploration—our ideas about what lies beyond, our attempts to discover it, and our thoughts about what we have discovered—is really the soul of space exploration. And the television series From the Earth to the Moon captures that soul.

Produced in part by Tom Hanks and Ron Howard, From the Earth to the Moon is a twelve-episode series that ran in the late 1990s. It brings to life the history of mankind’s journeys to, from, and on the Moon. I love that the series tells this story from a variety of perspectives. I am accustomed to seeing the Apollo astronauts as superstars; these episodes also stir me to admire the efforts of the ground crew, the spacecraft designers, the press, and the astronauts’ wives and families.

The first episode, “Can We Do This?” reveals the intense pressure of the space race. The plan to send Americans to the Moon began before we had even put an American in space; as a result, the Mercury and Gemini missions happen at breakneck speed. The consequences of this speed reach a climax in the next episode, “Apollo One,” which covers the devastating loss of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. This honest and deeply emotional episode hooked me on the series. It is an exceptional performance.

Since then, I have watched the Apollo 7 crew recover from tragedy to complete a successful mission, and I have celebrated as Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders orbited the Moon on Apollo 8. I am not finished with the series, so I am eager to see more. Indeed, it is taking an act of self-discipline for me to finish this review without popping in another episode.

If you want to test the water before diving into twelve episodes, I recommend the film Apollo 13. Directed by Ron Howard, Apollo 13 has an excellent cast, including Tom Hanks, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise, and Kathleen Quinlan. Spaceflight was never so real and suspenseful to me as it was when I watched this film for the first time. Now, after several viewings, I still feel that intensity. And I have developed a soft spot for Mission Control. One of the achievements of the film is that the cast breathes passion into highly technical language and concepts. One actor exclaims, “I need to know if the IU’s correcting for the Number 5 shutdown!” I’m on the edge of my seat!

The Apollo missions show us what humanity can achieve. As Jim Lovell says in Apollo 13, “We live in a world where man has walked on the Moon. It’s not a miracle. We just decided to go.” Working for the common good uplifts us all. Apollo also reminds us how much we have and how valuable it is. Earth, seen from space, is a fragile and fantastic thing. Watch From the Earth to the Moon and Apollo 13. Learn about Earth, the Moon, and humanity.

Lives of Comic Desperation - by guest blogger Marc Acito

Our guest blogger is the novelist, humorist and screenwriter Marc Acito. He was the winner of Oregon Book Awards' 2005 Ken Kesey award for Best Novel for How I Paid for College. His latest book is the sequel Attack of the Theater People.

I'm a promiscuous library user. At any given time, I've got two dozen books out and as many on hold. I got into the habit when I was poor and couldn't afford books. I probably shouldn't say this, since it's in my best interest that readers buy books, but I never buy a book I haven't read. I figure why own it if I'm only going to read it once?

So I use the library to test drive--promiscuously. If I love something enough that I need to own it, then I buy it, underlining and scrawling marginalia as I re-read.

As a result, I'm a familiar fixture at the Hillsdale Library, my local branch. Yes, it's true. Despite being a gay guy with a trendy haircut, a ready wit and the same waist size I had in junior high, I live in Deepest Suburbia. I prefer to think of it as the Lower West Hills.

Living as I do in the burbs, I’m a huge fan of books about desperate housewives. Reading stories about smart, funny women who are miscast in their lives is like having a marathon phone call with your best girlfriend, assuming your best girlfriend is hilarious, brilliant and completely honest.

A perfect example is the compulsively readable We Are all Fine Here by Mary Guterson, in which a married woman finds herself pregnant after a liaison with her old boyfriend in the bathroom at a friend’s wedding. You know those friends who are constantly screwing up but you secretly enjoy it because it makes you feel better about your own life? That's what reading this book is like.

We Are All Fine Here delivers Hitchcockian suspense without anyone being chased by a crop duster or rappeling off Abe Lincoln’s nose. From page one, questions abound: Who is the baby’s father? Who will the heroine end up with? How much longer can she hide her morning sickness? (announcer voice) These questions and more will be answered As The Stomach Turns.

In contrast to the friend who screws up is the friend who’s got it all together. For that, you must turn to Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther. Forget the melodramatic MGM weepie with Greer Garson. This slyly comic story of a well-bred Englishwoman on the eve of World War Two fascinates me with such pressing concerns as how do you find a charwoman on short notice and what do you say at a shooting party?

But Mrs. Miniver’s contentment with her privileged life is tempered by her wry observations, like how she longs to invite the scintillating half of the couples she knows to dinner, then invite the boring ones another night that she could cancel. It’s like Mrs. Dalloway for Dummies.

The best literary friend of all, however, is the narrator of Nora Ephron’s Heartburn, who is the perfect synthesis of the first two—a mild screw-up who still has her head screwed on straight. Long before Nora Ephron felt bad about her neck, she wanted to wring the neck of her philandering husband. Because the novel is reportedly based on Ephron’s own calamitous marriage to journalist Carl Bernstein, it’s difficult to imagine anyone other than the acerbic author herself in the role, even after Meryl Streep played her in the movie.

This book proves the adage that “Writing well is the best revenge.” The heroine of Heartburn writes cookbooks—which is appropriate given Ephron’s totally edible prose. It’s a delicious book, one you alternately want to gorge on yet savor, and the kind of hilariously wise and well-observed novel that makes readers wish the author were their best friend and makes writers like me contemplate suicide.

While I lead my own life of quiet desperation, however, I depend on these fictional friends they way I do my real ones: for comfort and laughs and inspiration. I take solace in knowing that there are others in the same boat. Especially if that boat is dry-docked in Deepest Suburbia.

Bones - by guest blogger Chelsea Cain (watch)

 Our guest blogger is bestselling author Chelsea Cain (www.chelseacain.com/). She writes dark grisly thrillers set in Portland. Hear her speak at the Central Library on Saturday February 21st, 1-2:30 p.m. More details here.

I resisted Bones for a long time.  It goes back to my love-hate relationship with David Boreanaz. I loved Buffy and I loved Angel (though I only started watching it when Buffy ended and desperation kicked in – I mean, at that point I would have watched a spin-off about Dawn). 

Don't get me wrong.  I totally had a crush on him in Buffy. I mean, damaged, soulful vampire – what's not to like, right ladies?  But there was also something – how to say this? – a bit dim about him, like he was one incisor short of a full set of teeth.  Take away the black togs, the Byronic back-story, and he was mighty like your average high school jock.  

In Bones David Boreanaz plays an FBI agent named Seely Booth who wears snazzy belt buckles and shoots people a lot.  His partner, Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan is a forensic scientist.  She's played by Emily Deschanel who is the sister of Zooey Deschanel – the quirky indie actress with the fantastic bangs.  Dr. Brennan is serious and smart and a little nerdy.  Booth is cocky and funny and defensive. 

It's a familiar set-up.  Male/Female investigative team -- opposites in every way -- solve crimes while resisting the unexpected urge to do the horizontal mamba. 

But Bones is elevated by its cast and writing.  At least that's what I'd been hearing all that time I was resisting watching it.  And finally, since I write thrillers for a living – and do most of my research by watching cop shows on TV -- I gave Bones a shot. 

And you know what?  

(I love it.)

I don't care how much my husband makes fun of me. 

I don't even care that I'm so late jumping on the bandwagon.

You know that great feeling when you discover a show that you love and there are like thirty episodes on DVD?  It's like having a whole bag of M&Ms or a whole bottle of Vicodin. 

You can enjoy it all the more, because you know there's more. 

Chelsea Cain was born in 1972 and lived the first few years of her life on a hippie commune in Iowa.
Her first novel featuring Detective Archie Sheridan and serial killer Gretchen Lowell, Heartsick, was a New York Times bestseller. The follow-up in the series – Sweetheart -- also a NYT bestseller, is available in stores now.  The third installment, Evil At Heart, hits bookstores in September 2009.
Chelsea is also the author of:
Dharma Girl: A Road Trip Across the American Generations
The Hippie Handbook
Confessions of a Teen Sleuth
Does This Cape Make Me Look Fat? Pop Psychology for Superheroes
She also edited the anthology Wild Child: Girlhoods in the Counterculture, was a former columnist for The Oregonian and The Portland Mercury, and has published work in British Elle, The New York Times Book Review, and Ms. Magazine.
Chelsea lives in Portland, Oregon, with her family.