Even though I have long admired Karen Carpenter's lovely singing voice I really didn't want to buy or read the new biography about her. Way back in the mid-90s I read another book (The Carpenters: The Untold Story by Ray Coleman) that somehow managed to sound sincere and exploitative at the same time. While Randy L. Schmidt is no doubt 100% sincere and about as far from sensationalistic as a writer can get, Little Girl Blue leaves me feeling so sad and as if everything I just finished reading was nothing more than a futile experience...like watching your favorite tear-jerker movie and expecting it to end differently.

The bio is very well-written and Karen Carpenter emerges not only as the very talented and kind woman she was, but also as a funny and witty person who valued friendship and family over the shallow things celebrities sometimes embrace.

We learn of some of her many experiences in the recording studio and some of the things she liked (she was crazy about I Love Lucy), but it would have been neat to know more about those kinds of things...of course, it's possible that kind of info just wasn't available. The extensive notes and bibliography Schmidt include makes it clear that he is a first-rate researcher and worked very hard on this touching book.

Definitely not THAT Mr. Peanut!

Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross (so far, at least!) is a very haunting and intiguing read...so what if Entertainment Weekly magazine gave it a C? It can be a bit too bleak at times and even a bit too odd (usually, nothing's ever too odd for me) but besides the suspense and bizarre relationship that the husband and wife share there's the underlying issue of  weight (and weight loss) that I've never seen captured so well by a male writer before...

When I was seven or eight (I think) I was playing with my sister in our living room while some tv movie played on in the background. I'm pretty sure it was an ABC movie. In an almost haunting way I've never forgotten this because of what I remember about the movie (even though it's over thirty years later.)

For anyone too young to recall (or too busy to watch tv!:) ) the ABC movie of the week was as much a part of the prime time line-up as "Happy Days" or "Charlie's Angels." The movies could be amazingly cheesy, but they were sometimes actually better than you could ever imagine (The Cracker Factory with Natalie Wood comes to mind.)

In the scene of the movie I'm thinking of two women were out to lunch, both of them stylish and gorgeous. One of them, a blond, wore an incredibly vivid shade of red lipstick and nail polish. We're talking a red so red it jumped off the screen and scared me. The blond must have been nervous or mad because her nails were digging into the palms of her hand so deep blood started to run.

Now I know this sounds bizarre. But I had this dream about it the other night and unlike most of my dreams, I think this is a memory, but the more I think about it the more I wonder. It just doesn't sound like something that would have been on tv, especially back then...

So I'm hoping to track down the book pictured above and find out once and for all if what I'm remembering is memory or dream...

I'm looking forward to this EP coming out in September. Rumer sounds enough like Karen Carpenter to make this an intriguing listen:

slow

I think I may have discovered what the "beyond" in Bed, Bath and Beyond is!:)

Last night I was looking for new bath towels when I found a small dvd section of items drastically reduced. To my happy surprise I discovered The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show-The Complete Series (normally $22.98) was $5.99!!!

When I was about eight years old and this was still airing on Saturday morning tv in the 70s I couldn't get enough. It made me think that high school was going to be this fun and magical place where your pet (mistaken for a football player with amazing skill!) could walk through the halls with you and everyone (even the bullies)  would be either friendly or funny, sometimes both! Music and dancing (late 60s style) would also be an everyday thing.

Of course this turned out to not be true, but I didn't know that then and I loved every second. I also didn't realize then that Sally Struthers voiced Pebbles and Jay North (of Dennis the Menace fame) voiced Bamm-Bamm.

Last night as I watched the first two episodes I couldn't believe the memories from my childhood that came rushing back. It looks a lot different to me now, but somehow I enjoyed it just as much...which sort of worries me as an adult!:)