When I was a kid, one of the treats that we got around Christmas was something called “barley toys.” I guess they were called toys because they were in the shapes of people or other seasonal objects: Santa Claus, snowman, Rudolph, things like that. Sometimes they came on sticks, like suckers, but mostly they were just standalone figurines. Too large to pop into your mouth all at once — you had to crack them into pieces to enjoy them. I discovered recently that the “barley” reference is because they were made from barley sugar. They had a unique flavor, even though they were little more than pure sugar. I think I’m going to get to resample some this year, so I’ll see how well my memory of them stands up.
When I was at the gym yesterday, I saw the middle section of a Bruce Willis movie on USA Network. I didn’t recognize it, so I looked it up and discovered it was Hostage, which I’ve never seen. Last night I checked to see if it was available on our On Demand system, but it wasn’t. However, while in the H listings, I noticed that Hard Candy was available. I remember hearing good things about it at the time, and I’ve been impressed with everything I’ve seen Ellen Page do so far, so I decided to check it out. Of course, I already knew the basic premise, so the reversal 1/4 of the way into the film was anticipated from the opening shot, but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the movie. Page is so good–and she was only 17 at the time. I half expected her character to end up being older than the fourteen she said she was. It’s a pretty intense movie, all the more so because there are only the two characters from 95% of it.
Addendum: Bummed to hear about the death of Eric Woolfson from the Alan Parsons Project.
I had strange dreams last night. In one I dreamt that there was an artist whose work consisted entirely of potato chips mixed with water. I seem to recollect that modifying the amount of water was the secret to his varied works. In another dream, I was on an airplane and there was something to do with terrorists and an envelope that signified their presence. They were unusually vivid.
I received the new Michael Crichton novel last night and hope to get to it soon. I’m a little over 1/3 of the way through Don Quixote, at just about the point where I put the book down the last time. I finished the section where the travelers read the novel manuscript found at the inn, the tale of the ill-advised curiosity that features a character named Lothario. I find it interesting that most online etymologists track the use of the word Lothario back to a 1703 play without giving much credence to this earlier character. The word is defined as “a man who seduces women,” and that’s just what Lothario does in Don Quixote, though he does it at the bidding of his best friend. It’s a strange little interlude story, and you know that Anselmo’s proposal is a bad idea from the beginning, and Lothario does a good job of outlining all the reasons why it’s a bad idea, but it goes forward nonetheless.
It’s odd when the same conceit arises in two different TV series. Meredith gave a part of her liver to her estranged father on Grey’s Anatomy and this week Wilson gave a lobe of his liver to a friend/patient on House. In the former case, the plot was introduced to explain the actor’s maternity leave, whereas in the latter case it was a point of characterization.
