Dominae Petrosini

Free Food for Millionaires

admin — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:16:00 +0000

Free Food for Millionaires is a coming of age novel by prize-winning author Min Jin Lee. It follows the main character, Casey, from her posh college graduation through her uncertainty about what to do with the rest of her life. She struggles throughout the book to reconcile her conservative Korean-American upbringing with feminism and her own desires to break out of proscribed roles.

I found this book very challenging due to both its unconventional narrative style and its flighty, difficult to like protagonist. Although the main character is Casey, the author will often jump inside other character's heads to give you their perspective and stories from their own pasts. Sometimes this works great, as when you jump into Casey's father's head to witness his terrible memories from his childhood in Korea just before he commits an act of domestic violence in the present day. These flashbacks deepen the story and made me more curious about the characters, as well as adding a layer of sadness because the reader can see how often the drama in the story comes from the characters' misunderstanding of each other. But sometimes these "story microbursts" slow down the book when they are from the point of view of very minor characters. The book is already long (560 pages), and seeing things from so many viewpoints takes away from the momentum of Casey's story.

And then there's Casey herself. Here is where I think the author did a very interesting thing in creating a character who is both fascinating to follow and completely infuriating. She will constantly make you analyze both her ideas, especially towards feminism, and your own. Sometimes Casey's feminism seems to consist of, "Let's max out our MasterCards at Bloomie's and then all go get abortions!" or "I like shopping so I'm a feminist rebel!" or "I'm sexually liberated, unlike my silly goose sister who wants to follow her dumb old religion, but my own boyfriend still boinks co-eds two at a time!" Casey is conflicted, and this book certainly throws enough drama her way, but at times I wanted to bang my head against a wall while reading her interior monologues. Still, I was glad that this wasn't just a sugar-coated story, and the characters do have multifaceted discussions about marriage, careers and class issues. It may not be love at first sight with Casey, but you'll want to follow her to the end to see how it all turns out.

Written by: Dominae Petrosini, August 21st 2007

Willow Room, Green Door

admin — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 19:30:00 +0000

By Deborah Keenan

Milkweed Editions

Deborah Keenan's new poetry collection Willow Room, Green Door includes selections from her previous books - such as Kingdoms, The Only Window that Counts and Household Wounds - in addition to her most recent work. In a collection that spans a lengthy period of time, the reader gets a lovely sense of inhabiting a changing world with the poet, of walking through time, both historical and personal. This collection contains a beautiful diversity of forms and topics. There are prose poems and verse of many shapes and styles.

Some of my favorite poems in Willow Room feature sharp, intellectual responses to fine art and varied literature full of emotion and subtle wit. Some poems, such as "Night Walk": “The last lover you had before your first marriage/called a few weeks ago./You felt the heat” start out with a simple premise, then unspool to reveal much more, from the intimate to the political to the sharply witnessed sensual details: “A car goes by and you believe the silver bike/tied to the top is a Christmas tree” that make these poems ring authentic. Her poems are often sad, but strong, and often touch on female emotion and experience. I love the lines "I have not been done in by some reckless bonsai gardener/I am not an easy species" in her poem about searching for a metaphor and identity.

For me, reading these poems was like listening to a great hip-hop artist who is able to take everything they've seen and learned in their culture and stream forth a flow that puts everything in its right place. Even if you don't recognize every proper noun, they intrigue you and begin to make sense because of the clarity of their perfect contextualization. It's a piece of literature that made me want to reach out and learn more, to pay closer attention to the world that Deborah Keenan so ably observes.

Written by: Dominae Petrosini, July 7th 2007

Mind Beyond Death

admin — Wed, 16 May 2007 13:26:00 +0000

By Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

Snow Lion Publications

"Hey, I'd like to read a book about death!" Perhaps this is not what comes to mind as you browse the "New Books" section at Borders, but if you are interested in Tibetan Buddhism and ideas about the cycle of life and death, I may have a book for you.

Somewhere between a conversation and a textbook, Mind Beyond Death, is an expansion upon a series of lectures given by author Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche in 2003 at the Treasury of Knowledge Retreat. The book focuses on Buddhism's six bardos, or stages of life. Of these, the text focuses most heavily on death and on preparing for death, not just in response to an impending crisis such as illness, but as a part of everyday life. The book also offers a fascinating, if sometimes challenging and intricately detailed, storehouse of Tibetan Buddhist thought. It provides some practical thought exercises, visualization techniques and yogic techniques on how to become focused on the present, along with more ambitious and esoteric goals such as "planning your last thought." If most of your knowledge about karma comes from what you've learned on episodes of My Name is Earl, the book may be a bit overwhelming.

Still, Mind Beyond Death retains the gentle, conversational tone of a lecture delivered by an accomplished teacher to an audience of eager students who may all be at different levels of interest. For those new to reading about Buddhism, the book may be intriguing at times and baffling verging on incomprehensible at others, with its incredibly specific appendix charts describing the Stages of Death or The Hundred Peaceful and Wrathful Deities. If you're game and up for a challenge, Mind Beyond Death is rigorous and demanding. It's worthwhile if you are curious about Tibetan Buddhism, in general, and willing to devote a large chunk of time to exploring a subject, death and our response to it, that most of us try to ignore.

Written by: Dominae Petrosini, May 16th 2007

Did I Wake You?

admin — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 13:02:00 +0000

By Beth Lapides

Soft Skull Press

In her book Did I Wake You?, Beth Lapides gives a modern spin to the 5-7-5 syllable pattern of the Japanese poetry form of haiku. Instead of the usual traditional haiku topics of nature, describing cherry blossoms or rivers flowing to the sea, Lapides uses these morsels of poetry to get to the heart of chic, cosmopolitan life.

For topics, these poems sift through the substrate of a modern woman's experience, touching on love, politics, shopping and friendship. The modern language couples nicely with the formal structure to create humor, surprises and moments of sharp insight, especially when the poems touch on politics. The haiku are peppered with hyper-current references to things like Sephora, MySpace and the Mars Rover, which draw the reader in and remind us of the common cultural space we occupy. If you never imagined that you could laugh with and be intrigued by a book of poetry, now is the time to reconsider. At times boisterous and sometimes subtle and probing, Did I Wake You? offers the author's inner monologue as she experiences situations and relationships that all women will be able to identify with.

Overall, Did I Wake You? is a great book to buy to enjoy for yourself or to give as a gift. It would be a fun departure for those already interested in poetry, as well as an enticing lure for those reluctant to pick up a book of verse. Beth Lapides has produced a great, lively collection of poetry full of playfulness and pitch-perfect perception of modern living.

Written by: Dominae Petrosini, April 16th 2007

Bad Girls Club

admin — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 00:54:00 +0000

Oxygen Network

You probably don't need to be told that a reality TV show called Bad Girls Club is not high art. I was expecting, however, that it might at least be guilty fun. The Real World-style formula of taking a group of strangers and recording their (mostly drunken) antics has produced some hits and many misses. From its cloyingly coy title to its faux-self-help premise, however, Bad Girls Club is a clunker.

The idea of the show is that "difficult" women will live together for four months in an attempt to overcome their problems. In order to really get behind the basic intention of the show, you have to be willing to distill the spectrum of female personalities into a rainbow that ranges from "peevish" to "ostentatiously bitchy." That's a bad start, but each of the women did agree to be on the show, so I'll give that part a pass. Still, it is a little unnerving to watch grown women consistently refer to themselves as "bad girls" during the interview segments.

Overall, I blame the producers for the weirdly hostile vibe of the show. The women themselves seem to be trying their best to be entertaining, although there's absolutely no vestige of the self-help angle of the program in most episodes. The producers leave the girls with little to do beyond partying and fighting. Episode plotlines are often shallow and ridiculous. Watch Zara become obsessed with a bobble-headed club promoter! Watch the blondes try to set up a tent and build an illegal bonfire! (How tired are blonde jokes?!) Every now and then the women are able to manifest a spark of their inner, non-stereotyped personality, but these instances are sadly few and far between.

Kudos to the show for its catchy theme song by Lady Sovereign, and its pretty California beach setting; otherwise, I think this show is too aimless and angry to be much fun.

Written by: Dominae Petrosini, March 3rd 2007

The Last King of Scotland

admin — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 19:39:00 +0000

Directed by Kevin Macdonald

Fox Searchlight Pictures

Idi Amin loved fast cars. Idi Amin so admired the Scots that he outfitted his soldiers in tartan kilts and had them play bagpipes along with their drums. Idi Amin and his "State Research Bureau" killed approximately 300,000 Ugandan men, women, and children.

The film The Last King of Scotland, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Giles Foden, depicts snapshots of Amin's presidency as seen through the eyes of his personal physician, Nicholas Garrigan (played by James McAvoy). Pursuing adventure, young Scottish physician Garrigan heedlessly trips into Uganda on the eve of Amin's ascent to power. Garrigan soon crosses paths with the new president at a dramatic political rally; Forest Whitaker's first scene as Amin must go down as one of the most terrifying entrances on film.

At first the film has an almost light tone, and the early humor disarms the viewer in a manner similar to how the charisma of Amin seduces Garrigan. Amin takes Garrigan's advice on matters of state, and the two pal around in swimming pools and at state dinners. But eventually the depths of Amin's corruption and atrocities reveal a personality inflated to grotesque dimensions.

The film's portrait of Amin is fascinating, but the real curiosity of the film is watching Garrigan become intrigued, entwined, and repulsed by the power surrounding him. Garrigan's subplots leave the moviegoer to speculate how far the physician will follow Amin down the garden path, and how grandly his own ambitions will bloat him, edging him towards explicit evil. In this manner, the film addresses more than one cruel dictator and one nation's tragedy. Instead, its scope covers the dark corners of human nature, the seductive lure of power and the tidal inertia that sweeps bystanders into war criminals.

Shot on location in Uganda, The Last King of Scotland is worth seeing for the lush, misty scenery of a nation few Westerners will ever see firsthand, as well as for the Oscar-caliber performances. Although fiction, both the novel and the film version of The Last King of Scotland are a good launching point for learning about Amin's Uganda and the strange interactions between former colonial Africa and the West. The film is, ahead of Oscar season, currently enjoying a wide theatrical re-release, with a DVD release scheduled for April 17, 2007.

Written by: Dominae Petrosini, February 23rd 2007