It's all very well to be hip and ironic, but a friend of mine discovered that her pantry was breeding agrarian anarcho-syndicalists and it took weeks to get them out.

Any good art department could do a reasonable job of capturing the swirly-wintry magic tone of Winter's Tale- but Helprin’s glory is his language - and the only way film can express language is through speech. I think Goldsman understands that; he starts with disarming humor (Helprin is laugh out loud funny) uses it…

The horror of becoming like Willy Loman - or one of his sons— has always been more nightmarish to me than any zombie apocalypse.

These are delicious- and gave the best kind of nightmares!

The shower is pretty much where I get my ideas too- but now, instead of writing them in the steamy glass or trying to shove them into short-term memory, I hang an Aquanote Waterproof Notepad on my shower wall— they work flawlessly with a regular pencil and they stick on any wet surface.

a few years ago, Pinkwater's Lizard Music was optioned by an indie film production company; no word on it in ages.

Are you saying that there could be a Hoboken Chicken Emergency film that could top THIS?

Kids went crazy for the OT because it didn't talk down to them. It was about real things, the stakes were high and kept getting higher, adults had complicated relationships and occasionally stuffed each other in carcasses. We didn't have to "get it" to appreciate it— we were just glad someone was giving us the real…

well, for sure Goldsman's going to have to ditch a ton of the book to make it a reasonable length. What remains to be seen is whether those cuts (how many pages of Jesse Honey will we need?) will remove the heart of the book or expose it. At best, I think the movie will be like Chris Columbus's Harry Potter movies-…

<grin>

I'm not worried about Goldsman anymore; WT is his favorite book, and he'll do a classy and honorable job on the screenplay. I'm no AG apologist, but everyone's entitled to a Batman and Robin moment— more power to him that his career survived it and he went on to things like A Beautiful Mind and Fringe.

Wow- this is pretty much a catalog of favorite books and books I have to read.

I heard that Zelazny wrote about pizza like it was ice cream and ice cream like it was pizza.

I think you're right— the movie will probably suck. I was re-reading parts of it the other night and thinking that there's no way that any movie can weave the spell that Helprin's language does.

I saw the Tedious Libertopians open for the Violent Femmes.

Compulsively watchable

And another one

A perfect movie

Oy, it'll kill me! But it sounds worth it— thanks!

Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Images from book covers and the play at London's National Theatre.