2004-12-30 - 8:40 a.m. This holiday season, if you like plucky young heroines with ram's horns and tiny penises, In the Realms of the Unreal is the movie for you. Not so much a straight documentary about the life of "outsider artist" Henry Darger (cuz, really, who knows?), Jessica Yu's film is a respectful and intensive exploration of his art and work. She employs Terry Gilliam-like animation to make Darger's saccharine/scary illustrations of the "Vivian Girls" come to life, and has real-life Vivian Girl Dakota Fanning narrate from Darger's 15,000 page novel. It's whimsical and chilling at the same time. I've never been a big fan of winter. As soon as the temperature dips below 68, I've got piles of sweaters on, and at least one scarf long enough to kill me Isadora Duncan-style. But Gretel Ehrlich, author of The Future of Ice, thinks winter is just ginchy. In fact, all of her books are about some aspect of cold weather, arctic travel, and days and days of no sun. Like the best travel/nature writers, she gets the brutal facts right, but presents them in such a poetic style that even I start to hanker for igloos and mukluks. thoughts? (3 comments so far) previous - next blog archive contact