The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

The story of an odd family told through the eyes of a young woman who can taste people’s emotions from the food they prepare.  This kind of food mind reading is not fun and our hero tends to eat as many manufactured foodstuffs as she can.  Machines have no bad feelings to impart on their food. Author Aimee Bender just drops us into the story and lets us discover along with the young woman what it is like to taste her mother’s sadness and the baker’s anger and the harvester’s disgruntlement.   But the girl who can taste people is not…

Continue reading

The Illusionist (2010)

A French cartoon about a magician nearing the end of his career.  We follow him around as he performs his tricks for disinterested audiences, or practically no audience at all.  He is an old school sort of act, who can’t compete with things like rock n roll. For company he has a slightly ill tempered rabbit-and a young woman who follows him from one of his few successful gigs. The animation is in the style of Disney’s 101 Dalmatians, the original version with it’s hip and cool 1961 feel to it.  The Illusionist is a stunningly beautiful film.  London and Edinburgh have starring…

Continue reading

A single rose can be my garden. . .

Leo Buscalia was a happy loud mouth that liked to state the bleeding obvious and make it sound like a blinding revelation. He was fun to listen to, his books can’t touch the power of his speaking. I only saw him on TV, but he was fun to watch. Leo Buscalia told a story about a young woman in one of his classes. She kills herself one night when her boyfriend neglects to call her. It’s a standard sad and poignant story. But Leo takes it to the next logical step, he asks: What could she have done, besides killing…

Continue reading