totimundi.com Blog

Joseph Kennedy, the former Congressman, is speaking now at Ted Kennedy’s memorial service.  I wonder whether he is thrusting himself forward because he wants to be a Senator.

My next-door neighbor has his great-grandson mow the lawn with a sort of mini-tractor.  It is very noisy.  I thought I was hearing a helicopter.  And it stirs up clouds of dirt, which the wind is blowing into my yard and driveway.

Stanley Tucci and Meryl Streep in movie Julie & Julia

My Life in France
by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme

I just finished reading My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme, a nice follow-up to the movie Julie & Julia. Julia Child, famous as a television chef and as a co-author of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, wrote My Life in France towards the end of her life. Her husband’s grandnephew assisted her in writing the book. The book tells of Julia Child’s life in France from November 1948 through the decade of the fifties, and of her stays in France thereafter. She lived in France with her husband Paul Child who worked putting together exhibits for the American foreign service. Julia’s first meal in a French restaurant was an epiphany for her. She eventually took cooking lessons at the Cordon Bleu and then gave cooking lessons with two Frenchwomen Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, with whom she collaborated on the famous cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The book tells of her work in writing the cookbook over a period of a few years and in getting it published in 1961. Back in the United States, Julia appeared in WGBH Boston’s TV show The French Chef and became a national celebrity. My Life in France is well written and always interesting. It communicates the joy that Julia Child took in French cuisine and in France in general.

I am not planning to read Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell, the other book that inspired the movie Julie & Julia. Having read a few reviews of it, I believe that I would not be interested in a book with a lot of foul language and a lot of whining by a person who comes across to many as an unpleasant, unsympathetic individual.

My Life in France, amazon.com

amazon.com / amazon.co.uk

“At Home With Friends is inspired by Joshua Bell’s fondness for hosting informal musicales in his Manhattan home. Join the Grammy Award-winning violinist as he celebrates the many musical friendships he has made over the years – a diverse group of artists sharing their love of music in an intimate setting. Features vocal and instrumental duets with Chris Botti, Sting, Josh Groban, Kristin Chenoweth, Regina Spektor and many others.”–from product description at amazon.com

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Release date:  September 29, 2009

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I’ll probably order a copy.  It caught my eye in an article at playbill.com because of Nathan Gunn’s participation, but I don’t expect to like his song very much, Rachmaninoff’s “Oh, Cease Thy Singing, Maiden Fair.”  One can hear Dmitri Hvorostovsky sing that song at youtube.  But on the whole I think the CD will be pleasant, something to listen to while driving in the car.

Track Listings

Track Listings
1. I Loves You Porgy featuring Chris Botti
2. Come Again featuring Sting
3. Oblivion featuring Carel Kraayenhof
4. Cinema Paradiso featuring Josh Groban
5. Para Ti featuring Tiempo Libre
6. My Funny Valentine featuring Kristin Chenoweth
7. Maybe So featuring Edgar Meyer
8. II. Allegretto espressivo alla Romanza from Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano
9. Eleanor Rigby featuring Frankie Moreno
10. Oh, Cease Thy Singing, Maiden Fair, Op. 4 No. 4 featuring Nathan Gunn
11. Il Postino featuring Carel Kraayenhof
12. Left Hand Song featuring Regina Spektor
13. Chovendo Na Roseira featuring Dave Grusin
14. Look Away featuring Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile
15. Variant Moods (Abridged version) Duet for Sitar & Violin featuring Anoushka Shankar
16. I’ll Take Manhattan featuring Marvin Hamlisch

I just ate my fourth tomato of the ones I’ve grown this season.  It doesn’t appear to me that there are going to be any more.  I may get one small cucumber.  It looks as if it thinks it’s a tomato.  I may get seven or eight parsnips.  No turnips.  No carrots.  It would have been cheaper to buy vegetables than to grow my own.

If your marriage is reported in the New York Times, you now expose yourself to ridicule at Gawker.

“In a way that’s not entirely on its surface, Julie & Julia must be the first studio film ever made to properly examine what it’s like to blog and be a blogger,” writes Matt Dentler at indiewire.com.   An interesting point.  I see so few movies I wouldn’t know such a thing myself.

Meryl Streep as Julia Child in the movie Julie & Jullia

I enjoyed seeing the movie Julie & Julia this afternoon.  A married woman in Queens, New York, a few years ago cooks during one year all the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking and blogs about it.   Interspersed are scenes from the life of Julia Child in the 1950’s when she co-authored her famous cookbook with Simone Beck.  Meryl Streep plays the part of Julia Child well but stops a little short of doing a full imitation of her, probably for the better.  On the whole the movie is pleasant and worth seeing.

One scene takes place in South Station, Boston, but was not actually shot there, one reason being that the waiting room with the big wooden benches, where the scene is supposed to be taking place, was in the part of the station that was torn down a few decades ago when the station was reduced in size.  I remember that waiting room from my childhood and it wasn’t so spacious or so glamorous as it appears in the movie.

Julie & Julia theatrical release page at amazon.com

Julie and Julia Masterprint
Buy at AllPosters.com

“One of the worst trends in operas is letting singers wear their wedding rings on stage, especially when the character is single . . ..”–Barihunks

I suppose in most opera houses most of the audience isn’t going to be able to see the singer’s finger well enough to see the ring.  But of course it’s a different story for photos or for filmed performances with close-ups.

I received an ad in the mail today from LA Fitness.  Apparently they have a gym in Walpole, Massachusetts.  I never heard of them before the recent shooting at one of their gyms near Pittsburgh.  It’s good to know that my gym has lots of competition.  I hope the competition will keep them from raising the rates.