Full Metal Jacket Diary

Calling Matthew Modine's account of his 18 month experience making the Movie under the direction of Stanley Kubrick a hard cover book is an understatement. My copy of the limited edition (13,613 of 20000) run has an metal cover complete with hinges and binding of undetermined mineral content. Published nearly 20 years after the movie was made and five years after Kubrick's death it would appear to be a form of catharsis for the writer exorcising some of his lasting demons. Stanley Kubrick's oeuvre are not easily quantified spanning the likes of Sci Fi--2001: A Space Odyssey; Historical Fiction--Spartacus; Horror--The Shining; and Romance. His work does not lend itself to pigeon holes giving an entirely new definition to the word quirky. When it came to making a movie about the war in Viet Nam his take is raw, brutally realistic, and ruthless making the need for commentary superfluous. For the grunts who served in his make believe army the experience was as brutal as the war itself taking an equally remorseless human toll.

Some interesting facts get revealed in Modine's telling of the story. R. Lee Emery got the part because he was a Drill Instructor, he wasn't acting. Where most directors shoot 10 feet of film for every one they use Kubrick's ration is 100:1; easy to say that but another thing if you're the one doing take after take after take after take ad infinitum.... Matthew makes being on a Kubrick set sound like a living hell--tedious and mind numbing. This is not a book one would take to the beach. I suppose now I have to watch this movie again in light of my new insights.

The Taste of Country Cooking

The average cook pays $ 30.00 for a cookbook and is lucky to find 3, maybe 5 recipes in it she/he will add to her permanent collection of favourites. The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis is another kind of book. Although I may not ever use her recipes for corn bread or muffins I will remember in future that the secret to keeping them from sticking to the pan is to heat the fat that is used in the batter in the pan and pouring it on the batter from the smoking hot pan just before I bake then in the pan which is still sizzling hot. Most of us would not buy bacon with the rind--skin--of the pig still on it let alone fry it that way; but it is interesting to note that Edna's family did and finished it in a slow oven which make the rind crispy. But then her bacon was probably not the paper thin shaved product we pick up in the cello pack. Some cookbooks are for recipes, some are reference books on proper technique, and some few are read from cover to cover for the lore they contain. Edna Lewis' is one of the latter.