5:07 PM
Blog Fasion
- Introduced In 2003
- Retired
Some people would call Frank Guerra fussy, even compulsiveâ€"but they’re wrong. He simply believes in perfection. He strives to make every textbook he writes into a work of art, and he intends that every Cuba Libre he mixes come out textbook-perfect. (The key? Exactly six drops of lime juice for each ounce of rum.) And Frank also believes in romantic love.
In fact, he believes in love so strongly that he’s willing to divorce his faithful wife Marta (who’s a real mensch about it), lose his old friends, and even leave behind hi! s adoring daughter Emilyâ€"all for the sake of his new america! na, a se date but supremely sexy schoolteacher named Catherine O’Neal, or Cat for short. But it’s worth all the pain: Cat believes in their love, too.
So why, when he looks deep into Cat’s cool sphinx-like eyes, can Frank never penetrate into her depths? Why does he begin to see only his own gaze reflected there, as if from twin funhouse mirrors? Is she hiding something from himâ€"anything? (Everything, maybe?) Is his Cat merely toying with him? Frank finds the possibility disturbing. He expects his perfect love to be fully and equally reciprocated. After all, in an imperfect, unstable world filled with disappointment, isn’t there any ideal, anything, that’s really worth living for, maybe even dying for? Frank can’t think of anything but love.
Born in Havana, GUSTAVO PÉREZ FIRMAT is the author of the acclaimed, best-selling Next Year in Cuba, published in Spanish by Arte Público Press as El año que viene estamos en Cuba, described by Library Journal as “A! fascinating account of a 30-year search for a homeland and a new national identity... Engrossing and full of insights into the Cuban exile community,†and hailed by The Washington Post Book World as “A serious work of literature â€" as well as a ripping good book…[Perez Firmat] offers us an eloquent, amusing, often moving testament of a long moment in the troubled history of two countries.†A professor at Columbia University, he has published numerous nonfiction works and three collections of poetry.
The conflicted protagonist of Anything but Love, the steamy and sardonic first novel by Gustavo Pérez Firmat (author of the acclaimed Next Year in Cuba) may remind some readers of Peter Tarnopol in Philip Roth’s painful sexual farce My Life as a Man, and others of Bob Slocum in Joseph Heller’s dark corporate satire Something Happened ... but Pérez Firmat has imbued his fiction debut with a Cuban-American flavor uniquely his own.
Some people would call F! rank Guerra fussy, even compulsiveâ€"but they’re wrong. He s! imply be lieves in perfection. He strives to make every textbook he writes into a work of art, and he intends that every Cuba Libre he mixes come out textbook-perfect. (The key? Exactly six drops of lime juice for each ounce of rum.) And Frank also believes in romantic love.
In fact, he believes in love so strongly that he’s willing to divorce his faithful wife Marta (who’s a real mensch about it), lose his old friends, and even leave behind his adoring daughter Emilyâ€"all for the sake of his new americana, a sedate but supremely sexy schoolteacher named Catherine O’Neal, or Cat for short. But it’s worth all the pain: Cat believes in their love, too.
So why, when he looks deep into Cat’s cool sphinx-like eyes, can Frank never penetrate into her depths? Why does he begin to see only his own gaze reflected there, as if from twin funhouse mirrors? Is she hiding something from himâ€"anything? (Everything, maybe?) Is his Cat merely toying with him? Frank finds the possi! bility disturbing. He expects his perfect love to be fully and equally reciprocated. After all, in an imperfect, unstable world filled with disappointment, isn’t there any ideal, anything, that’s really worth living for, maybe even dying for? Frank can’t think of anything but love.
Born in Havana, GUSTAVO PÉREZ FIRMAT is the author of the acclaimed, best-selling Next Year in Cuba, published in Spanish by Arte Público Press as El año que viene estamos en Cuba, described by Library Journal as “A fascinating account of a 30-year search for a homeland and a new national identity... Engrossing and full of insights into the Cuban exile community,†and hailed by The Washington Post Book World as “A serious work of literature â€" as well as a ripping good book…[Perez Firmat] offers us an eloquent, amusing, often moving testament of a long moment in the troubled history of two countries.†A professor at Columbia University, he has published numerous nonfiction! works and three collections of poetry.
In a career that's! veered from '70s pop chanteuse to Broadway star and neo-operatic diva, Sarah Brightman has brought a critics-be-damned sense of dramatic scale to nearly every project she's tackled. This two-CD package of 31 hits brings together selections from Brightman's original Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection, including many definitive versions of Lloyd Webber classics. Also included are songs from her album Encore, which itself was largely culled from her Songs That Got Away and Surrender song anthologies, although they do include four previously unreleased outtakes from those collections.
Her 1998 recording of the title song from ex-husband Andrew Lloyd Webber's Whistle Down the Wind succeeds by emphasizing its melodic grace with a deft, airy touch, while the remainder rescue worthy songs from obscure or failed musicals. From Lerner and Lane's 1959 Carmelina comes the lovely "One More Walk Around the Garden." Stephen Sondheim's youthful 1954 debu! t, Saturday Night, yields a sprightly take on "What More Do I Need," and an operatic reading of "In the Mandarin's Orchid Garden," from the Gershwins' unproduced 1929 East Is West, is also included. If the selection leans a little too heavily on the Lloyd Webber connection elsewhere (including Italian versions of "Guardami (With One Look)" from Sunset Boulevard and "Piano (Memory)" from Cats, delivered in her patently restraint-free soprano), they're only reminders that shrewdness has hardly been the least of Brightman's talents. --Jerry McCulleyRomantic, funny, tender love story about a struggling Cabaret singer who yearns for the days of Audrey Hepburn and Rita Hayworth. Rated PG-13People in movies just don't break out into song and dance often enough anymore--at least that's the sentiment of Anything But Love, a throwback to the Fred & Ginger era. Sweet-voiced redhead Isabel Rose plays an aspiring songbird in present-day Manhatt! an (in other words, she's a waitress), singing her beloved sta! ndards i n a dowdy little club and auditioning for the big break. In order to learn piano, she must endure lessons from a cynical slob (Andrew McCarthy), with whom, of course, she strikes sparks. Anyone with an inclination toward old musicals will probably be willing to go the extra mile for this awkward, low-budget offering. It never really takes wing, but does have two attractions: the fresh presence of Isabel Rose (who also co-wrote the script), who's hopelessly lost in the past; and a long roster of standards from the American songbook, which are given the affection they deserve. --Robert HortonPorcelain girl holding a "care package" (a box of hearts).
