Kelson Reviews Stuff - Page 40

It never occurred to me in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast that Belle was giving up her dreams of adventure in the great wide somewhere to be with the Prince Formerly Known as Beast. She gives them up at the beginning of the story to save her father, but by the end, what’s she done?

• Joined a society of transformed humans in an enchanted castle.
• Fought wolves in a snowstorm.
• Held her own against a ferocious Beast and changed him.
• Saved her father’s life and freedom, and the life of the Beast.
• Escaped that poor provincial town (and that boorish, brainless Gaston)

She’s had a big adventure…and now that the prince is human again and she’s cast her lot in with him, she has the resources and freedom to have more.

That’s why I can’t stand “A Change in Me,” the song that was added to the stage musical a few years in. It takes a criticism that I always thought was unfair — that she’s OK with giving up her dreams to be with a guy — and makes it canon.

Doma Kitchen started serving eastern European food in a tiny converted house with only outdoor seating on a small, triangle-shaped lot in Redondo Beach across one street from Whole Foods and Rite-Aid and the other from a psychic reader. They closed to look for a new location – I forget whether the owner of the lot had already decided to redevelop it or if they just wanted more space – and did the occasional pop-up event in the meantime.

In 2015, the restaurant found a space in a storefront next to a movie theater at the end of Manhattan Village mall. At the time I posted this on Yelp:

It was great. The lamb stroganoff and kasha with bratwurst were both different takes from what you usually find and very good. There’s a good variety on the kids’ menu too.

The look of the place is a lot different from the old Redondo Beach location. It’s more trendy than homey, but that goes along with the bigger kitchen and menu, so it’s hard to complain. (It’s also a lot quieter when dining outside than it was when they were right next to a major street.)

It wasn’t long before the mall decided to raze the building and put in a parking structure. They moved to Marina Del Rey in 2017, opening in a strip mall connected to a grocery store. I can’t remember if I ever got around to visiting that location, though I used to visit a Japanese restaurant in the same strip mall with coworkers from time to time. Sadly, it closed permanently on the last day of 2019.

Seeing Ragtime on stage is a vastly different experience from listening to it, and not just because it’s live theater. There’s so much context, so many connections, so much subtext that you don’t get from the songs alone. It’s very much a go-home-and-hug-your-kids kind of show.

I’ve been a fan of the music ever since we did a few songs from it in a revue back in college, but I’d never actually seen it until this month, when I caught 3D Theatricals’ production in Redondo Beach.

It’s a big show — forty-six people on stage, according to the director — and they turned in a great performance. The vocal standout, I thought, was the actress playing Mother. The actor playing Coalhouse had a very different voice than the one on the album, but he had physical presence and was able to really convey both his optimism in act one and his rage in act two. The character needs both to work.

Speaking of differences between the production and the cast album, I should note: when you just have the highlights, Father comes off as just kind of clueless. When you have the full songs and the book, he’s a bit of an obstinate jerk.

I found myself struck by the layers of historical interpretation: It’s a modern production of a 15-year-old adaptation of a 40-year-old novel about life in America 100 years ago. And we’re still dealing with the same problems: Institutionalized racism and sexism, exploitation of the working poor, conflict over how to handle immigration. It really hit at the moment when authorities kill a young African-American because they think (wrongly) that she has a gun. You can argue that any historical fiction is as much about the present day as it is about the period it’s set in, and maybe it’s a matter of each era distilling the common themes from the older work, but it was telling (and disheartening) how topical the story still is.

I love this place. They have a great selection of science fiction/fantasy books (I assume the mystery selection is good as well, but since I don’t read mysteries I can’t really judge it), knowledgeable staff that can find or recommend things for you, plus author readings, movie nights, and other events. They get involved with offsite events like book festivals and science fiction/comic conventions as well. They usually get authors to sign a few extra books to sell later. I’ve bought several signed first editions here.

While the Redondo Beach location was open (it closed in 2014), it was my first stop for books in the genres they carry, and a must-visit stop when gift shopping for readers. The San Diego location is still around.

In the 1980s, Little Golden Books released a set of “Little Golden Book Land” books bringing back popular characters like the shy little kitten, the poky little Puppy, Scuffy the tugboat, etc. and putting them all together, apparently as tie-ins to an animated TV special.

As thin as its story was, at least “The Shy Little Kitten” had a positive message for shy children: It’s OK if you’re not as rambunctious and social as everyone else, because you can go off and do interesting things on your own, then come back to the company of others when you’re ready to handle it.

There’s a little bit more story in this book, but the message?

1. If you’re shy, there’s something wrong with you.
2. You’ll never have any fun.
3. It’s your own fault.
4. You should change yourself to be just like everyone else.

It’s toxic, whether it’s reinforcing shy kids’ own doubts about their self-worth or reinforcing other kids’ tendency to look down on them (now with extra “It’s your own fault” ammunition).

(And while the target three-year-old audience probably won’t mind, the book also suffers from the same problems as the rest of the “Little Golden Book Land” series: Background characters show up for no other reason than to have them show up, and descriptions are turned into names. We never learn the kitten’s name, but I don’t think it’s “Shy Little Kitten.”)

I hate destroying books, but I’m seriously tempted to toss this one in the recycle bin. Putting it in the donation box would be doing a disservice to whoever picks it up.