Time it was and what a time it was it was...

I went to the Captain America flick with my friend Joe. We met, nearly 30 years ago, when we both worked at a Back Bay print shop. Joe ran a Heidelberg GTO and I was, essentially, a preflighter.

Elvin O was another pressman. He’d been the stock guy – receiving paper and supplies, reloading the shelves, keeping track of what we were low on – before being promoted to AB Dick 360-hood. The press was old as hell but it ran. This was back in the pre-digital press days when having 1,000 flyers printed always meant offset versus Xerox.

Time, a lot of it, passed, the company we worked for changed hands. The new owner made some truly bozonian, shortsighted decisions including the complete elimination of the ink on paper department, which put all my old chums out on the street. I’d been in the HR department, also kicked to the curb, and got plugged into a secretarial position.

Curious – If the pressmen had boobies would they have gotten secretarial gigs too?

I fell out of touch with both Joe and Elvin but heard, happily, they'd got new press gigs pretty quick. Yea them!
The company? A couple of years after ixnaying the offset department, the owner bought all new presses (having sold the Heidelbergs and Dicks), hired new, different pressmen and started a brand new print department (with a lot of the same types of equipment). Dude was from ferociously big money – the wasted dosh and time were no more than ticks on a spreadsheet to him.

Back to the present though – Joe and I, (reconnected a few years ago), went to see the Captain America movie at the theater on the Boston Common. HUUUUUGE movie palace! Joe went off to the little boys room while I cooled my heels at a table near the popcorn stand overlooking the Common.

Curious again – why is my memory of movie theater popcorn SO much better than the reality of it? Buttered popcorn used to be one of the big thrills of going to the picture shows. Now? Tastes kind of cardboard-y, the ‘butter’ is just oily gick and I can’t deal with the hulls getting stuck in my teeth. Either popcorn’s changed or I’ve gotten rilly old. Maybe a little of both.

And then, then I saw a very handsome man coming up the escalator. I was all WHO is that? He looks so familiar! I def suspected that I thought I knew him precisely because he was so easy on the eyes (wishful people watching?) and went back to gazing out the window. Then it hit me…ELVIN! Damn, he’d already passed by. I should’ve tripped him! *sigh*

Moments later, Joe comes walking back to the table WITH Elvin! Too awesome. The three of us sat and schmoozed until it was time to head into our respective screening rooms. He was there for X-Men: Apocalypse.

Sitting with them both — I felt like I was 30 again but, at the very same time, I was mega aware of time's passages. Elvin's twin brother has died – cancer. I'm deaf. Joe's marriage hit an iceberg. BUT we're still here. Alive, thriving and going to big Marvel movies.

Old Friends – Simon and Garfunkle

Captain America: Superhero Opera

Maybe I’m just especially dense OR maybe I needed to be WAY more up on my Marvel comics character histories to understand what the fuck was happening in the first half of Captain America: Civil War. I REALLY coulda used a libretto. Maybe a scorecard too.

Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War finds Steve Rogers leading the newly formed team of Avengers in their continued efforts to safeguard humanity. But after another incident involving the Avengers results in collateral damage, political pressure mounts to install a system of accountability, headed by a governing body to oversee and direct the team. The new status quo fractures the Avengers, resulting in two camps—one led by Steve Rogers and his desire for the Avengers to remain free to defend humanity without government interference, and the other following Tony Stark’s surprising decision to support government oversight and accountability. (source)

Adding to my struggle to keep up was the fact that a lot of the characters weren’t especially distinctive looking.

Steve Rogers AKA Captain America, played by Chris Evans is a painfully young, bland, blond, paler than gesso dude. I get that he’s supposed to be seen as a handsome 1940s era, all American Iowa farm boy type. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

“Baron” Zemo is played by Daniel Brühl who looks like the trustworthy soul from whom you'll buy home insurance.

Scarlett Johansson, is beautiful as ever. She plays Black Widow and, frankly, gets lost in the crowd.

Emily VanCamp is a sweet, blond, likable, chubby faced Agent 13 and Captain America's sweetie. Of course.

The Winter Soldier is played by Sebastian Stan, a man whose name is more interesting than his face.

19 year old Tom Holland, who looks like his balls dropped just last week, plays the getting-his-first-shot-at-the-big-time Spider-Man. Cute kid.

Paul Rudd is Ant Man, not a shabby looker BUT he’s encased in costume the whole time.

Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye is easy on the eyes and NOT in a facemask but he doesn’t appear, best I could tell, until the last third of the flick.

Elizabeth Olsen, (NOT related to the twins) is The Scarlet Witch. She kicks ass while looking like your winsome, mega wholesome first crush.

Vision, played by Paul Bettany, is never out of costume (as far as I could see). The red skin, metal headpiece and ability to walk through walls make him stand out from the pack.

Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, AKA Robert Downy, Jr. – wickedly and distinctively handsome as always.

Falcon is played by the buckets of drool inspiring Anthony Mackie.

War Machine is the sponge-worthy Don Cheadle.

Chadwick Boseman is a fresh-faced Black Panther.

Marisa Tomei is Aunt May who, on meeting Tony Stark, goes big into mega Flirt City. This is just a thousand kinds of WRONG. Aunt May should be played by a white haired and motherly Helen Mirren or Ellen Burstyn type.

My last gripe about the pic, and this is completely on me, is that I found it enormously painful to watch these powerful good guy/gal characters fighting each other instead of working together to snag and bag the big bad. Each side had very good rationales for their decisions. I totally understood each side but I wanted to slap them all silly – while you squabble, the villain(s) are doing more damage AND getting away!

Yup, it was a big fat allegory. For me it was a superhero illustration of what’s playing out in the Democratic primary.

I think I’ll go see Ghostbusters next. That can’t possibly be political, right?

The calla lilies are in bloom again

The calla lilies are in bloom again. Such a strange flower—suitable to any occasion. I carried them on my wedding day, and now I place them here in memory of something that has died.
~ Katharine Hepburn, Stage Door

When you recite that first sentence DO remember to say it with great weariness and pronounce the last word a-gān not agĕn. Loooooooooong a.

Stage Door was one of Kevin’s fave movies. What’s it about? The short version is: 

Women at a theatrical boarding house try to make their big break happen. (source)

It’s far deeper though, illustrating the opportunity chasm between the haves and have way fucking less's.

Katherine Hepburn’s character, Terry, has big Broadway stage dreams. She’s from a wealthy Midwest family and could, most def, afford a Big Apple apartment all her own. Daddy would totes spring for it. Instead she moves into the crowded Footlights Club, a boarding house for unmonied aspiring gypsies – actresses and hoofers looking to make their big breaks.

Why? It's that pesky, romantic notion of starving, struggling, hopeful artists thrown together, all helping one another.

In hopes that she'll fail and sour on the Broadway dream, Terry’s daddy buys her the lead in a new play by a big name producer. Hilarity does NOT ensue.

Why’s this come up? Yesterday, while I was rambling around Nut Island, I noticed that the beach roses are in bloom a-GAIN.

In the jumbled attic of my brain this brought Kay to mind.

Like Terry, Kay seemed to have a starry-eyed idea of what being a poor starving artist type actually entails. She had discovered the wonders of mud and fancied herself a creative clay crafter. Despite being from a one percenter wealthy family, she had studio space at the same, very small, clay collective as me.

She always made a big, showy thing of competing with another art potter who, not born in a money patch, supported herself through her sales. On each Open Studio sale day Kay would tot up the day's receipts and crow loudly, if she was ahead, as though this was all nothing more than fun, good natured competition. As though paying the rent and buying food weren't on the line. Well, for her, they weren't.

Kay was not blessed with self or social awareness.

I never really understood why she didn't set up a brill studio in one of her homes (either the one in a fashionable Boston neighborhood or her mondo spread down in Truro). Was she with us for the technical tips and advice from fellow craftspersons? She could get those at any of the bazillion, expensive workshops that she regularly took part in. Maybe she needed to have status within a group. You know, the big fish/small pond thing. Who knows?

Unlike Terry, I don't think Kay ever learned how offensive and obnoxious her behavior was.

Dilapidation

Things I could do at 47 that I totes can't do at 57.

• Drink a second martini or cosmo or shot of Jamo and NOT get totally sloshed. Also too, no hangover.
• Take an epic ride or go for an equally huge hike and NOT need a nap afterwards.
• Eat a second TAB cookie and NOT have to do extra laps to avoid weight gain. For that matter – pizza. I could eat PIZZA! I miss pizza. *sob*

What brings this on? I just got the pic in the mail from Grandparents Day at Madison and Julianna’s school. The photographer was, I’m assuming, one of the teachers who happened to have a good camera – NOT a pro and NOT someone with an awareness or understanding of their subjects' delicate fee-fees.

‘sup? Was ist los?

She captured me with my wonky left eye shut, the other wide open. That and my nerve damaged mouth was in a twisted line that would look more at home in a Ralph Steadman illustration.

For that matter, I could be Cliven Bundy's darker, older sister. YEESH!

No, you don't get to see this egregious image.

The girls are, of course, beautiful. The Amazing Bob is beautiful. Me? Oof.

Before getting this evidence of my gnarled visage, I’d planned on framing the shot – putting it over the couch where I could see it daily. I think what I’ll do is, next time the girls are visiting, have Jen do a portrait of us. Girl's got talent and a rock solid recog of what bits of reality that Donna'd rather not see, thenkuveddymuch.

Now then, time for this old crone to suit up for my epic ride.

Summer's Kick Off

Sun is shining. Weather is sweet. Make you wanna move your dancing feet. 
~ Bob Marley

Summer doesn’t actually, officially, begin until the sun reaches its tippy top most point in the sky. You know, when the earth makes with the solstice action. That’s on June 20th but Memorial Day weekend is, here in the US anyway, the kick off weekend for the season.

Memorial Day, an American holiday observed on the last Monday of May, honors men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971. (source)

On this weekend, Kevin Alexander Scott will be in my head – not that a day goes by that I he isn’t, mind you.

It's a sad/happy, manic-depressive kind of a weekend.

 USA Today tells us of the 10 beaches to start summer off right. None in New England, by the by. Of course, the water here is still much too cold for swimming. Unless you’re a kid or or an L Street Brownie type. I’m neither BUT I’ll wade in the surf here at home and down at Nantasket.

The summer's flower is to the summer sweet Though to itself it only live and die.
~ Shakespeare, Sonnet #94 

Die Fledermaus/The Bat by Van Gogh (No, really – he painted a bat. Awesome!)

Whoa – buzzkill, man!

On the bat's back I do fly After summer merrily.
~ Shakespeare, The Tempest

Ahhhh, much better.

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby 
Check out good ol' F. Scott's pic at the linky – that is some seriously bad hair!

Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths.
~ George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

With the primaries and upcoming election, we SO have that squabble shit covered.

Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if the heart was young, the music issued at the lips.
~ Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Press close, bare-bosomed Night!
Press close, magnetic, nourishing Night!
Night of south winds! Night of the large, few stars!
Still, nodding Night! Mad, naked, Summer Night!
~ Walt Whitman

There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.
~ Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Check out the linkage, if you've time. I find some killer bee, cool shit while I'm googling my way around the intertoobz.

Hookahs, Lasagna, Flying Cats and Words

In my on line word games – I’m mega weary of playing inelegant words just because they’ll net me more points. Dammit! (insert petulant foot stomp here)

Zit instead of virus or bris

Tonic instead of ninon.

Pad instead of baize.

Refine instead of fern.

Really, the indignity of it all may be too much to bear this morning.

Consolation prize – I got to play trollop instead of stroll and motet instead of emit.

OK, fine.
~~~~~~~~~

Randomly, Jen thinks of seagulls as cats with wings. I'm inclined to agree.

The Amazing Bob woke with a horrible back ache – he has crushed discs in his lower spine which, more often than he tells, give him hellacious amounts of pain. This morning it was so bad that he woke me up with a wistful, snarky request for opium.

I allowed that I'd go ask Alice.

I cook him all his fave foods (luckily his tastes fall within my profoundly limited kitchen abilities) or pick up take out from his preferred diners. Chores and errands? We used to split these. I took them over so's his always in the wings pain wouldn't bloom. Cleaning? I give it my best effort but I'm no domestic wizard. In short, I’m workin’ my sweet, fat tas-tas off because, goddamnit, I want him to feel better…NOW!

And I wanna know, why is it that I can’t make him all fucking better! Last night’s meat lasagna from Fratelli’s really should’ve done the trick, ya know.

Food? Food will make him better. Gee Donna, Italian Catholic much?
~~~~~~~~~
Rocco would be content, would be in total heaven, if I stayed in bed reading all day whilst cosseting the hell outta him. Occasionally he’d make it clear that it was time for snacks or lunchy which I’d, naturally, run and fetch for our retired warrior king.

I’d love to oblige – really I would. Unfortunately (for him) work, exercise and those pesky errands, call to me. Oh, the guilt trips he inflicts when I leave the room! That look – you’re not leaving me, are you?

(have I mentioned that Italian Catholic, molto susceptible to guilt trip thingie before?)

He’s now to the point where he allows TAB and Jen to pat him…a bit. Let’s not get over-familiar and crazy here!

Was my boy ever feral? Hard to imagine.
~~~~~~~~~

Coco keeping an eye on Ghost Cat

 Jen’s still struggling with nasty ass, run prohibiting knee pain. This has been going on since last year when she did that half marathon. She’s gone through rehab twice only to reinjure when she starts up again with her beloved morning routine.

Third times a charm and THIS time, she’s gonna ease back into her cherished, much missed morning run so slowly, her knees won’t suspect a thing. Before ya know it, she’ll be back up and at ‘em, happily zipping down Wollaston Beach each morning.

Meantime – I’ve got new sneaks which seem to be making a difference for me. No more post ex pain – yippee! I’m also working up to my epic rides gradually-ish. Yesterday, I triked out to Wollaston Beach. I was still full of energy when I got there and thought, hey, let’s keep going! And then I remembered that I still had to ride home AND that I can ride again today.

Slow and steady wins the race and shit.
~~~~~~~~~
Finally, I do believe that the fragrance of early summer morning air  is the most brilliantly intoxicating scent there is. The bedewed grass and sand, low tide, blooming lilacs – hells bells, even the tree bark's giving off an alluring smell. The freshness of it all is FABULOUS! And now I have this tune in my head.

Before the sun came out. Puts Jonas Vidar in mind, don't it?

da Vincis of the Streets

Deih, Fanzara, Spain

ericailcane, Mexico City

I’ve gone all ZOMG STREET ART IS THE BEST!!!!! before. Yes, I know.

On Twitter, I now follow a bunch of street art galleries. @GoogleStreetArt, @streetartmagic,  @BeArtist_BeArt and @streetartnews.  Every day I get fresh loads of mondo cool shit popping up on my screen. It's wonderful, fires up the brain and stirs the wanderlust pot somethin' fierce.

In Montreal, Jen and I found way less pretentious, more inspiring, gorgeous art on the sides of buildings – more there than in the ICA. In Reykjavik, where our funds were très limited, we took a pass on the museum and wandered the streets – MEGA happily.

The site Earth Porm lists twenty of the best cities for street art. Mexico City comes in at numero uno.

The city just recently became more colorful after “All City Canvas” went into play. The graffiti art in Mexico City conducted for this project was legal; in fact it took 11 long months to gather the appropriate permissions. 9 artists, some local and some foreign, were then brought in to paint the buildings as they are today.

Sabotaje Al Montaje, Canary Islands, Spain

DZIA=KRANK

Go lookie-lookie. Gorgeous stuff!

Przemyslaw Biejzyk and Mateusz Gapski, known together as “Etam”,  created most of the brill murals in Lodz, Poland (which holds fifth position).

Fintan Magee, Sapri, Italy

New York City is, of course, on the list. Also, Valparaiso, Chile, São Paulo, Brazil, Berlin, Germany, Cape Town, South Africa, Moscow, Bethlehem, Istanbul and more.

I used to take music vacas – Amsterdam for the small clubs AND the World Drum Fest, Edinburgh for the pub bands and concert halls , the Orkney Islands for the céilidhs and folk festival, Prague (cool jazz scene – who knew?) and more.

I would just stumble over the incredible street art as I went about finding the clubs and concert halls. I think it’s now time to intentionally go hunting up these amazing paintings. Mebbe I'll start with Mexico City?

JPS

People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish... but that's only if it's done properly.
~ Banksy

Everyone has to scratch on walls somewhere or they go crazy
~ Michael Ondaatje, In the Skin of a Lion 

Well, while you were in the bathroom, I sat down at this picnic table here in Bumblefug, Kentucky, and noticed that someone had carved that GOD HATES FAG, which, aside from being a grammatical nightmare, is absolutely ridiculous. So I'm changing it to 'God Hates Baguettes.' It's tough to disagree with that. Everybody hates baguettes.
~ John Green, An Abundance of Katherines  

Mermaids

John William Waterhouse, R.A., accepted 1901

Had a dream last night that I was a mermaid. I wasn’t one of them cool, sexy ocean dwelling babes, no. I lived in a nasty tenement in a bad part of town. Which town? Dunno. My subconscious neglected to fill me in on that though the joint put those funky Alphabet City dumps – you know, with the bathtub in the kitchen – in mind.

Oh and I was a smoker. Yeah, that’s another thing that Hans Christian Andersen neglected to mention. Not only did the little mermaid, me in this case, NOT give up her seaworthy finny-ness (I found a better witch – one who’d let me live on land AND in the ocean. Yeah, ya gotta shop around), I was rather fond of Benson and Hedges and Jamo.

It's a mermaid thing. No, RILLY!

In any case, I’d been at the local lying in, having just given birth to a wee baby girl swimmer.  Though the baby was healthy as all hell, I had to leave her at the hospital – docs wanted to observe her, do some fucking research for a few days. Bastids. I had no choice but to walk back to my fourth floor walk up.

I did and promptly filled the tub, flopped in, lit up a smoke and changed out from legs to my MUCH more comfortable fins. And then I stewed. I wanted the kid back and NOW!.

Just then, my boyfriend – a full time land dweller – walked in. This wasn’t the baby daddy. No, there wasn’t one actually. In dreamsville, this one anyway, we mermaids rocked the parthenogenesis action. Yeah, us mermaids, we were totally one up on the Amazons

For some reason the dude was there not to bring me daisies and chocolate covered cherries (because, dammit,  I’D JUST GIVEN BIRTH) but to stab me. Why? Dunno but it seemed that it had something to do with nefarious docs who wanted to dissect me for research shit. Yeah, great!

Last thing to go through my head before my fierce former warrior boy woke me up was Oh, FUCK NO! I am NOT getting offed today.

Yeah, I was annoyed and pissed versus afraid. That’s good, huh?

Semi-related but not actually so much – Mermaids is one of my fave Cher movies.

Tidbits

Where does that word – tidbit – come from?

Dictionary.com has this to say:

c.1640, probably from dialectal tid "fond, solicitous, tender" + bit (n.1) “morsel."

The British version is titbit. I always snicker when I see that word. Yes, I’ve the maturity of a 13 year old boy. Not proud of that but, ya know, I y'am what I y'am.

c. 17: perhaps from dialect tid tender, of obscure origin

Huh. I'd hoped for something more giggle inducing.
~~~~~~

Our new pal, Mechagodzilla

I never get tired of Godzilla movies and, the other day, TAB found a marathon happening on the TV. Awesome!

Battra–looks like a cute puppy, no?

Mothra vs. Godzilla
Godzilla vs Mothra: The Battle for Earth with special guest star Battra!
Godzilla vs. Megalon
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 
 Ya know, I’d never heard of Mechagodzilla let alone Super MechaGodzilla. And Battra? Who knew!? This marathon was def educational.
~~~~~~
Muumuu – did you know? You can buy brightly patterned muumuus at Walgreens. Yes, a pharmacy that sells polyester, fringed sacks. Cheap too!

Yes, I actually thought about it. For all of a sec before I yelled at myself Snap out of it!

They look so comfy and bright though!
~~~~~~
Back in Book Land – it seems that this is pastel season. The Recommended Reads shelf was oh so appropriately hued. And, now that you mention it, yes, they DO all look like Great Beach Reads for upper middle class mothers.

Elin Hilderbrand is heavily represented with Barefoot, Beautiful Day, Silver Girl, The Castaways and A Summer Affair.

With a couple exceptions, these are about happy weddings, happy, exciting, safe affairs, big, successful, happy careers in the arts and happy families (who may or may not have secrets – cue ominous music here).

In a similar vein:

The Lake Season, Hannah McKinnon

Set in the weeks leading up to an idyllic New England wedding, this “enticing and refreshing” novel sparkles with wry wit, sweet romance, and long-kept family secrets.

The Vacationers, Emma Straub 

An irresistible, deftly observed novel about the secrets, joys, and jealousies that rise to the surface over the course of an American family’s two-week stay in Mallorca.

Cozy, sparkling stories for and about privileged women who don’t need to worry, not even for one tiny second, about money, career, health or their respective places in the world.

PASS!

Oh and nearby there was an entire table of hardcovers dedicated to that ignorant, dimwitted, right wing lie machine (no, not talkin’ ‘bout Trump…this time) Bill O’Reilly.

A) Looks like he’s keeping his ghostwriter very busy
B) What’s with the killing theme? No, never mind, I really don’t want to step any closer to that clapped out, maggot riddled, fever swamp that he, doubtless, thinks of as a keen intellect.

Is this Barnes and Nobles' last attempt to sell these suckers at full-ish price before sticking them on the Oh God, Puh-LEEEZE Buy Me shelves? That being the last step before they're sent back to the publisher where they'll get the fate they so richly deserve – pulping.
~~~~~~
On the meditation front – I’ve tried going down to the seawall without my camera to experience the sunrise, the play of light on the wavelets, the clouds, the gulls zooming overhead. I breathe deep, take in all the magical spring scents and just BE. Doin' great, right!?

Yeah, I’m good for two minutes before I race back to the house for the old Canon because Damn, that’s some fabulous orange goin’ on!

Maybe the act of capturing the beauty around me (attempting to anyway) is, in itself, a form of meditation. Hmmmm? Could be!

Book Land

I was in my local book emporium yesterday. You might well wonder Why ‘the fuck you in Barnes and Noble again so soon? Weren’t you just there on Tuesday!? You couldn’t possibly have read Tim O’Brien’s Tomcat in Love in that short time!

No, no I didn’t. Though I’m a mondo fan of O’Brien – LOVED The Things They Carried, Going After Cacciato, If I Die in a Combat Zone and In the Lake of the Woods – I just couldn’t get into this one. I tried. Honest!

Billed as a dark comedy, I was simply unable to get past the main character's tremendously obnoxious self to appreciate the humor.

 Although the book is being positioned as a comedy, Chippering is a most obnoxious companion, so terribly self-deluded, self-absorbed and self-satisfied, so pedantic and boorish, so convinced of his own charms that the unfolding drama of his pursuit of revenge becomes discomfiting. We want to root for his ex-wife, but through the Chippering ""song of myself"" we don't hear her, or know her. (source)

Agreed! Possibly, I’ve known a few too many dudes like this and, rilly now, one would be a superabundance. They're not funny, to me, and I've no interest in reading about 'em.

Back into Book Land I went where I was, near instantly, assailed by panderingly annoying, flat out irritating and occasionally misleading cover art.

The Courier by Gerald Brandt – JAY-zuz this one’s worthy of Playboy or Penthouse. There’s no way in holy hell that I want to be seen in public reading something that mega reeks of bean flicking and carrot waxing. Hells bells. 50 Shades of Grey, which really, truly IS a fuck book, has a more subtle cover!

I had to know, is this paperback just an onanism accessory for the sci fi crowd?

A far-future science fiction debut set in San Francisco—action adventure with a cyberpunk tone.

Kris Ballard is a motorcycle courier. A nobody. Level 2 trash in a multi-level city that stretches from San Francisco to the Mexican border, where corporations make all the rules.
~~snip~~
Witnessing the murder of one of her clients changes everything. Now she’s stuck with a mysterious package that everyone seems to want. (source)

So then, that’s a big fat NO and now I want to read it BUT I don’t think I can get past that cover. I'd be embarrassed to even stand in the checkout lane with it. Maybe I’ll download the iPad version. *sigh* I much prefer ink on paper but, in this case, I think I can make an exception.

Katie Ashley’s Last Mile has a similar sexy time cover. I looked it up just in case this was another case of bad, deceptive, SEX SELLS cover art. Nope. This is a danger romance for girls who prefer bad boys and fancy themselves as always up for big, seemingly-skeevy-but-not-really adventure.

PASS!

What’d I end up with? Warlock Holmes: A Study in Brimstone by G.S. Denning.

Sherlock Holmes is an unparalleled genius who uses the gift of deduction and reason to solve the most vexing of crimes.

Warlock Holmes, however, is an idiot. A good man, perhaps; a font of arcane power, certainly. But he’s brilliantly dim. Frankly, he couldn’t deduce his way out of a paper bag. The only thing he has really got going for him are the might of a thousand demons and his stalwart flatmate.

So far, it’s funny as all hell, engaging and, frankly, it was hard to put down so’s I could write this.

‘scuse me, I gotta go back to Holmes and Watson. K?