Evanston: STRANGER THAN FICTION; THE HIDDEN ASSASSINS; Rocket Apple
Evanston: STRANGER THAN FICTION; THE HIDDEN ASSASSINS; Rocket Apple
STRANGER THAN FICTION is a clever movie. An IRS auditor (Will Ferrell) begins to hear a voice in his head. It is not talking to him, but is narrating his life, and he comes to realize that he has become a character in a novel, who must find the writer (Emma Thompson) before she kills him off. Along the way he seeks assistance from a professor of literature (Dustin Hoffman) and falls in love with a quirky baker (Maggie Gylienhaal), whose tax return he audits. Good, light entertainment.
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One of the pleasures of superior mystery novels/thrillers is description of place.
A few years ago I picked up one of Robert Wilson’s early novels because it was set in West Africa’s Benin, about which I knew little. It was good enough so that I read another.
He wrote three more novels about the same characters in West Africa, before he changed to Lisbon for what was his break-though book, and the one I consider his best: A SMALL DEATH IN LISBON.
Although he and his wife now live in Portugal, he moved his most recent three books to Seville, Spain, where they feature a police chief inspector, Javier Falcon.
At one time I knew Seville reasonably well. I enjoyed the first two Javier Falcon books more than his most recent, THE HIDDEN ASSASSINS, which is about terrorism, but not that much about Seville. Read A SMALL DEATH IN LISBON instead.
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Armed with a downloaded guide I’ve returned to the sculpture park twice, once alone and once with Carol.
The piece in the photo, Apple Rocket, is among the most amusing. The sculptor, Rob Lorenson, says that he did not intend to make an “apple rocket”, but has deferred to viewers who told him that is what they see.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007