Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All

I’ve always loved libraries. As a kid, I went through the entire juvenile biography section of my local library—in alphabetical order.

(I can’t believe it took me so long to figure out that I am a history nerd.)

I loved and still love returning a huge stack of books and taking back out an even larger stack. All for free! (well, ok, for taxes)

It turns out that more book lovers are also going back to their library roots. Borders is in trouble but circulation for the Chicago Public Library has gone up 30% in the last year.

I’ve certainly increased my use. Currently, I’m burning up the graphic novel section.

CPL also reports a huge jump in their online holds system. I’m also a big fan of this function. It’s like shopping online.

I choose the books I want, and they wonderfully appear at my local branch for pick up. For me, it’s like Amazon without the paying.

I certainly couldn’t do my book club and reading challenges without it.

Tags: Books, Chicago by Ms. SP
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Waitress is a movie I find difficult to determine if it is good or just average. I, however, do know that it is NOT bad.

Keri Russell plays the eponymous waitress and is outstanding. I didn’t watch Felicity but I can tell by this performance why she captured so many fans with that show.

Her character is in an unhappy marriage of the kind that turns me off of this particular institution. Her husband is needy, childish, and over-bearing. He demands her respect even though he doesn’t do anything to deserve it.

But, he does love her.

She has to turn all her money into him, but secretly—she’s been hiding a stash of get-away money. With her amazing talent with pies, perhaps she could make a life for herself after she gets away from him.

Life, especially screenplayed lives, however, will just insist upon obstacles.

Through it all, the story is told with a quirkiness that brings to mind Pushing Daisies, the now-canceled television show that also happened to feature pies.

Director Adrienne Shelly, who was horrifyingly murdered during the making of this film, showed a talent for creativity and visual panache in her shots. She also wrote the script, and within it, there’s a uniqueness to the dialogue while she plays with certain movie cliques. Sometimes these moments work, and sometimes they do not, but I appreciated each attempt rather than be annoyed by them.

I think Waitress is a surprising little movie that is worth watching because these days, so many movies all feel the same.

This one tells a conventional story in such a refreshing way that I can’t tell if it is legitimately good or not. I just know that I enjoyed watching it a lot.

Tags: Movies by Ms. SP
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I read Wonder Woman: Love and Murder by Jodi Picoult. This is the the first thing I have ever read by this popular writer.

The graphic novel was a fine enough read, but in the introduction, Jodi Picoult writes:

“My first attempt to effect subtle change was to take her out of her bustier, as any woman writer would know it’s impossible to fight crime without straps.”

So she didn’t get her way, but this good sense makes me think I should go read some of her other works.

Tags: Books by Ms. SP
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