Welcome to First Kiss and Other Cautionary Tales, a podcast where you can listen to observations on the quirkiness of life, hear short fiction read by a short person, and listen to book and movie reviews.
Reading the feed…
PODCAST-THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT-A MOVIE REVIEW Add Text Here…. 0:00 / 0:00 The Brand New Testament The Belgian film, The Brand New Testament, puts the “Q” in quirky. I love dark humor and unconventional films, but my husband, Bruce, does not. However, by the movie’s end, we agreed that this movie was a wild ride that we both enjoyed. (A miracle.) Here’s the set-up: God is a mean-spirited, grungy, bathrobe-wearing old guy who sits at a computer in bleak apartment in Brussels, wreaking havoc on mankind. His actions range from petty annoyances, like making sure toast always falls on the jelly sid
PODCAST-STERLING POINT-TV SERIES If you watch a trailer for the eight-episode series, Sterling Park, you might be tempted to dismiss it as a Disney-like teen show, but you would be wrong. Yes, there are a few “Disney” moments but on the whole director, Megan Park, delivers a tale well told, addressing important issues with nuance and wisdom. Fraternal twins Annie (Ella Rubin) and Connor (Keen Ruffalo—yes, son of Mark Ruffalo) inherit an island in Canada from a maternal grandfather they’ve never met. They’ve been raised in New York City by Steven, their adoptive father, played by Jay Duplass, T
PODCAST-EUPHORIA, MONTANA, & THE PROFESSOR & THE HOUSEKEEPER Are you looking for a book to read? Check out my mini reviews. Euphoria by Lily King: This work of historical fiction is loosely based on the life of anthropologist, Margaret Mead. The novel is set in 1930’s New Guinea, when anthropology was a nascent and not necessarily respected field of study. The narrative tension of the novel is created by both a love triangle and also the differing views the three anthropologists hold about the ways to pursue their research. King skillfully presents this tale from two distinct points of view. W
PODCAST-WIDOW’S BAY-TV SERIES I did not have helicopter parents. My first exposure to horror films was watching The Haunting at age ten with my father. Dear Dad, always the jokester, jump scared me at a tense moment of the movie, an event that shaved a decade off my life. Years later, in college, I stupidly re-watched the film with a bad boyfriend, who jump scared me at exactly the same moment. Based on Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, this movie is the reason I can never fall asleep while staying in an Airbnb in an old Victorian mansion. My second exposure to the horror genre was
PODCAST-WELCOME-A BOOK REVIEW Welcome—Patterns of the Moral Life is an elegant, succinct, and persuasive book on the importance of welcoming others. This is both a well-written argument for the necessity of welcoming others and a practical guide to extending welcome in ways that are ethical and nurturing. The book is co-authored by Lois Shepherd JD, a professor of biomedical ethics and law, and by Margaret Mohrmann, MD, PhD, a professor emerita of pediatrics, medical education, and religious studies. Given their credentials, you might be tempted to assume that this would be a dense, academic t
PODCAST-NICK & MIKE, NICK & ALICE MOVIE REVIEW I loved James Marsden’s performance in the TV series Dead to Me. He did an excellent job playing identical twins who had completely different personalities. The series was dark and wickedly funny. It’s worth checking out, if you don’t mind quirky and sometimes shocking material. I also enjoyed Vince Vaughn’s performance in Bad Monkey, a TV series based on Carl Hiassen’s novel. The humor wasn’t quite as sharp as I’d have liked, but I found it entertaining. When I noticed Marsden and Vaughn were starring together in the new movie Mike & Nick, Nick &
PODCAST-DECONSTRUCTING UNICORNS & MERMAIDS Photo Courtesy of Alexander Grey 0:00 / 0:00 Deconstructing Unicorns & Mermaids Streetlight Magazine just published this essay. You can read it HERE. Longer version below: My four-year-old granddaughter, Zoe, and her seven-year-old brother, Henry, (names changed) live out-of-state. We often meet via Zoom. We share a screen and explore their burning questions by searching YouTube videos. Henry is interested in science, sort of. For a while, he wanted to watch presentations about black holes, natural disasters, and the multiverse. Now he’s moved on to t
PODCAST-SON OF A BIRD-BOOK REVIEW Writers are often advised to leave out the boring parts. Nin Andrews did just that with her memoir in prose poems called Son of a Bird. I couldn’t put the book down. In the first poem of her collection, Andrews describes her childhood home, a stone farmhouse with a barn where the horses and chickens slept, and where the kittens and foals were born each spring. This sounds bucolic, but not all was well. One night when a horse named Ella dies, Andrews runs from the barn back to her bed where she can’t fall asleep. She writes a letter entitled, Dear Future Me, in
PODCAST-HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN FROM BELFAST-MOVIE REVIEW Elle Magazine describes the Netflix series, How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, as “Derry Girls meets Bad Sisters.” I liked Derry Girls so much that I used many clips from it for a humor writing workshop I facilitated a few years ago. I loved Bad Sisters, too. The series is a perfectly structured mystery with the best ensemble cast ever. I watched it three times twice for pure enjoyment and a third time to study plot structure and comic timing. Lisa McGee created both Derry Girls and How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, so I looked forward to
HOPING NOT TO HAVE TO SLEEP NEXT TO MYSELF Jim & Eva’s Sunday School Class Led By Gaetano Boccaccio, Eva’s Father 0:00 / 0:00 Hoping Not to Have to Sleep Next to Myself (This essay was just published by Otherwise Engaged An Literature & Arts Journal. Reprinted with permission.) I watch a herd of disaffected teens ignore a traffic light near the high school. They slow-walk across the busy intersection. Some wear black hoodies, some wear camo hoodies, a few are bare headed in the drizzling rain. Most stare down at cellphones; all grimly cocooned in separate universes. Later, on a city road, I wa
LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO WATCH? LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO WATCH?Here are four possibilities:Doc: a TV seriesA life shattering event plunges Dr. Amy Larsen into bitterness and cynicism. Played by Molly Parker, the physician becomes chief of staff at a busy hospital. For the next eight years, her acid tongue and aggressive behavior make everyone’s life hell, colleagues, family members, and even patients. Then, she’s in a car crash that results in a brain injury. The extensive damage erases eight years of her life, including memory of the terrible event. After the crash, Amy Larsen emerges from th
PODCAST-MONKEY BUSINESS Photo Courtesy of Jamie Haughton 0:00 / 0:00 Monkey Business (First appeared in Brevity.)I am not a monkey, but sometimes I act like one. Over the past couple years, I’ve had to put my writing and teaching career on hold as I’ve dealt with non-negotiable demands on my life. Those events knocked the stuffing out of me and trashed my self-esteem. I wondered if I still possessed the confidence, organizational skills, and knowledge I needed to continue in my profession. Despite being filled with self-doubt, I pitched a creative writing retreat idea to a group I’d worked wit
PODCAST-TASK-TV SERIES If you’ve read very many of my movie reviews, you’ll know that I love dark movies with redemptive underpinnings. The seven-episode TV series, Task, fits the bill. This crime procedural was written by Brad Inglesby, who also penned Mare of Eastown. Both series do a brilliant job of capturing gritty blue-collar life. Mare of Eastown is a mystery that keeps viewers in suspense, eager to discover the big reveal at season’s finale. The plot of Task is character driven; there’s no mystery to be solved. Instead, Inglesby creates narrative tension by exploration of the inner wor
PODCAST-JOYRIDE-MOVIE REVIEW I saw a snippet of Joyride on a long airplane flight. I found the film intriguing and always wanted to watch the whole movie, which I did last night with my fellow members of The Quirky Movie Club.The plot: Twelve-year-old Mully (played by Charlie Reid) is singing in a pub to raise money for a charity that benefits cancer patients, the disease that recently has taken his mother. While singing, Mully notices his reprobate father making off with the collected cash. He chases his father, grabs the money, and hops into the driver’s seat of a cab idling outside of the p
PODCAST-SMOKE-TV SERIES Smoke is a nine-episode Apple TV series based on Dennis Lehane’s book, Firebug. This thriller is dark and gritty, with its main theme being no one can escape the negative effects of a traumatic childhood. All the primary characters have backstories that have left them flawed. The writing is good and is often laced with a cynical and biting humor. As the story opens, we viewers learn that a serial arsonist has set more than twenty fires in the city. The investigators are under great pressure to find the perpetrator. The plot is comprised of a series of twists and turns,
PODCAST-NINE DAYS MOVIE REVIEW I watched Nine Days a week ago. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Written and directed by Edson Oda, this surreal film is set in a clapboard house in the middle of a bleak desert. In this house, over the span of nine days, Will (Winston Duke) decides if a soul will be given the gift of life. If the answer is yes, that soul will be born on Earth with all the attributes they already possess. If they are not chosen, they cease to exist.The souls traverse the desert in batches of five, arriving one after the other. Will interviews the individuals separately, so
PODCAST-SLOW WALKING OUT OF BABYLON *This originally appeared in Literally Stories, an international literary journal. One day, I meet Beelzebub standing ahead of me in line at the To God Be the Glory Soup Kitchen. Bathed in the glare of the fluorescent lights that flicker above us, the man glistens. Shards of hard white light reflect off his glimmering jacket, obscuring my view. But that one glimpse gives me the shivers. Our line inches closer to the table and away from the dazzle-splattering tubes. I notice the expanse of him, almost seven feet stretching toward the ceiling. Tuxedo jacket wi
PODCAST-DON'T ARRIVE BEFORE YOU GET THERE You can read this essay in Streetlight Magazine where it first appeared or down below.***My writing mantra used to be, Fine is good enough. I made sure whatever I sent out was the best it could be. However, I worked fulltime and was the primary caretaker for three children. When I finished a manuscript, I checked for issues, then hit “send” before anyone came down with croup, required a ride to music lessons, or needed four zillion forms signed. I never lingered at the finish line, which meant some manuscripts went out not quite fully polished.You’ve h
PODCAST-INSTANT FAMILY-MOVIE REVIEW Straight out of college, I took a job that gave me a year to “de-institutionalize” a group of 17-year-old kids who had spent their lives bouncing from one placement to another. My task was to equip them with the survival skills they hadn’t learned during their formative years. I was supposed to accomplish this before they turned 18, at which point the state would dump them on the curb. These kids had heartbreaking histories. Angie lost her parents and siblings in a car crash. Lenny spent his early childhood chained to a radiator. My favorite was Jimmy, a lan
PODCAST-PISTOL PACKIN' MAMA Photo Courtesy of Taylor Brandon 0:00 / 0:00 Pistol Packin' Mama Ninety-five years ago, my grandfather, Gaetano Boccaccio named my mother after his favorite Longfellow poem, Evangeline. Despite raising five children on a barber’s salary during the Great Depression, Gaetano made sure my mother took ballet, tap, and had French horn lessons. In high school, she played the French horn so well that she won a place in the All New England Orchestra.Eva loved classical music, over the years becoming an expert of sorts. After listening to a few measures of even the most obsc
PODCAST-THE GOD OF THE WOODS BOOK REVIEW Liz Moore’s literary mystery is set in 1975 at a prestigious summer camp in the Adirondacks. This place requires coed campers (aged eight through teens) to participate in a minimally supervised survival exercise. They are placed in small groups, given scant supplies, then are sent into the deep forest overnight to fend for themselves. The last instructions they hear are, “Do not get in touch unless someone is dying.”What possibly could go wrong? In this case, the campers capture and roast a squirrel for supper. Prior to the gruesome dinner, a stabbing w
PODCAST-CODE RED Photo courtesy of Jason Leung 0:00 / 0:00 Code Red Have you ever seen Das Boot (1981), the movie about a German submarine? I don’t recommend it. I don’t remember much about it except a terrifying few moments of sirens blaring, lights flashing, and Germans screaming, “ALARM!” This scene convinced me I’d never want to set foot on a submarine. Sad to say, I feel as if I am in a Code Red Das Boot moment every time I turn on the news. So, these days I’ve been searching for ways to lower my level of stress and increase my emotional wellbeing.I read that the scent of lavender is calm
PODCAST-TIME OF THE CHILD-BOOK REVIEW The first half of Time of the Child by Niall Williams moves ever so slowly, taking its time to build a solid framework for the captivating events of the second half. By the middle of this novel, we readers are intimately acquainted with the village of Faha, its topography, history, climate, culture, spiritual leanings, its people and the fascinating ways they are connected. Even though there’s not a lot of action for the first 130 pages, Williams builds narrative tension by making sure we readers care about the characters, both main and minor. He writes ab
PODCAST-HIGH POTENTIAL-TV SERIES Lately, I’ve been seeking low key, stress-free entertainment to keep my mind off reality. The television series High Potential fits the bill.Single mom, Morgan Gillory (played by Kaitlin Olson), is an exuberantly inappropriate savant whose antics get her in trouble with employers, past husbands, and the law, most specifically the LAPD, where she works as a janitor.The opening episode shows Morgan, music blasting into her air buds, wielding a dust brush, and dancing through empty offices. As she prances around swinging cleaning tools, she upends a stack of paper
PODCAST-IF I EVER DIE My father often started his sentences with the phrase, “If I ever die…” I never corrected him. I didn’t say, “Don’t you mean, when you die? You understand that dying is inevitable, right?”Instead, I wondered how he thought his life might play out. Did he believe he’d be carried off to heaven in a fiery chariot like Elijah in the Bible? Probably not.My father’s pronouncement didn’t seem to be influenced by any theological theories. The man simply disregarded his mortality, which resulted in his making risky choices, choices that evidenced questionable judgment.A man of irr
