Consumption

Oh, what the hell is going on worth writing about? Hmm.

• I'm learning to knit! I sort of suck at it, because I drop stitches constantly and I have no idea how to pick them up if they're on the ends of rows or whatever. But still! I sit down at night and watch stuff off the DVR and I feel all Little House on the Prairie, minus the horrible clothes and never-ending life lessons. It's totally gratifying.
• I've been reading Helter Skelter, and am almost done. I like true crime, particularly Bugliosi, and I've found this pretty fascinating. It's kind of incredible to see how powerful someone can be personality-wise that people were willing to lie, steal and kill for him. It boggles my mind, but it's interesting. Plus, I'm totally convinced that I could be brainwashed into a cult pretty easily, which is nerve-wracking. Anyway, it's good stuff.
• Fall premiere time! Hooray! On my roster for new shows: Reaper and Pushing Daisies both look really good, Chuck has potential and... crap, I'm drawing a blank. I watch too much TV.

As odd as it sounds I was pretty in favor of President Ahmedinajad visiting the US, but it sounds like that's gone over for crap, which is terribly disappointing. I don't want to go to war with another country who might blow us completely up! Ack!

...and I've stopped being interesting. Oh well!

More Recs, etc.

Jesus, I wish I got to update this thing as much as I would like to... but oh, well! We do what we can do!

So a couple weekends ago, I saw a review for I Sold My Soul on eBay, and the concept sounded so interesting, I actually went to Borders later in the day and picked it up. The basic premise is the author, Hemant Mehta, auctioned off the chance to send him to church, because he's really open-minded, and he wanted to see what he got out of it. Well, the auction raised $550, and every $10 bought someone a week, so the winning bidder and Mehta worked out an agreement, and he went to church for a year. He went to small churches, medium churches, big ones and megachurches, participated in the services and took notes of what worked and what didn't work. People hoping that he converted to Christianity might be disappointed, as Mehta remains an atheist at the conclusion of the book. But if you like honest discussion of the strong and weak points of religion from an outsider's eyes, and especially if you're looking for the big answers yourself, you'll probably really like this book. I did. A lot of the stuff that Mehta grapples with is stuff that I'm trying to work out as well. We have a lot of beliefs in common, with one difference: (well, not just one, but for the purpose of this point) I believe in God, and he doesn't. And you know what? That's not really that big a deal. Because the bottom line is we're both good people who want to do good things in the world and ultimately want to get as close to the truth as we can. Check out his website The Friendly Atheist for more on him.

Furthermore, I can't for the life of me figure out why I wasn't watching Arrested Development when it was on? I've been watching it with Jon since we started dating (actually a first date activity!) and it is seriously brilliant. Jason Bateman has been totally upgraded to TV boyfriend, and so has Michael Cera. It's to Will Arnett's credit as an actor that he hasn't been, as Gob is one of the funniest and most irritating characters I've seen. Get thee to Netflix and rent it if you haven't seen it!

Damn, what do I do on this thing besides recommend stuff? Bitch and moan, right. Well I don't actually have a bitch and moan in me at the moment, so this'll have to do.

Good Bad Bullet Points

• The heat wave mostly broke! Hurray!
• It's the busiest week of the year for my office. Un-hurray.
• My dad has the cutest puppies on the planet (pictures forthcoming to verify this as true.) Huzzah!
• Charlie, the younger of the two, freaking got me up at a quarter to five this morning because, well, he was done sleeping. Boo.
• I get to see Jon in the next day or two! Joy!
• I haven't seen him in two weeks because he's got diverticulitis. Suck.
• ...I'm so tired I can't remember any more bullet points. Lame.

In other news, because I'm not completely useless, I did read a good book over the weekend. Lucky, by Alice Sebold. Sebold wrote one of my favorite books, The Lovely Bones, and one of the big things I admired in that was how poetic the language was in it, it was really quite beautiful. This book doesn't flow in the same way, but is definitely as good. Sebold gives an account of being raped at the end of her freshman year of college. Despite the seriously heavy subject matter, the book has a lot of fun bits, and it's amazing to read the way she handled herself during one of the most difficult things a person and her family and friends can go through. She actually seems to have a harder time processing a tragedy that happens later to a friend of hers. And a lot of it is being strong for others and defiance, but it works, and given that this is the way I deal with stuff, I really jived with it. If you haven't read it yet, I definitely recommend it.

A Lovely Listy Book

Sometimes I suck with titles for these things.

So over the weekend I took the Amtrak up to Chicago and back. I spent four hours in Chicago and twelve hours total on trains. 8 hours up, 6 hours back. It sucked, sort of, but was also fun because I like trains and I got to read! It's been so long since I read for hours at a time. Generally I can only read for an hour or so at a time with stuff. (When Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows comes out, I will do nothing before I'm finished.) So Friday night I went to Borders to get a train read.

I got Five People Who Died During Sex: And 100 Other Terribly Tasteless Lists. Seriously, if you're traveling this summer and you like odd lists, pick it up. It was only $10 and it was so much fun! Here are some of the things I learned:

• Alfred Hitchcock suffered from ovophobia—fear of eggs.
• in 1930, Sears customers became enraged when the catalog was first printed on glossy, non-absorbent paper.
• I forget the country, but this one country let some American missionaries send a whole bunch of Bibles over, and they were having a toilet paper shortage so they processed the Bibles for toilet paper, and you could still read some of the names. (I know, it's horrible, but it's also funny.)
• James Garfield wouldn't have died when he got shot if people had just kept their grubby hands out of his wound. Ick!

It's very light reading and super fun if you like weird factoids. Highly recommend!

Everybody likes Boobies

So over the weekend, I read a really awesome book I picked up at the library. It’s called Stacked, and it’s all about breasts from an anthropological and cultural perspective. It’s really excellent, because it discusses how breasts might have evolved, how the bra has evolved, and what women and men think of them. The most interesting chapter might have been the last one, where the author discussed some transgender perspective on breasts and how they make someone feminine even more so than the possession of a vagina. It was quite interesting stuff, really! If you like non-fiction, definitely pick it up.

All I Do is Watch Movies and Shit (with Bonus Book List!)

Seriously, all I can do in here is write about movies I'm seeing and pop-culture I'm consuming. Honest to god, I do real things, like read books and talk about politics and care about the environment and shit, I swear. I just got out of a meeting about totally important international things that I'm not allowed to talk about yet, but will when I can because it's pretty awesome.

And yet yere I shall regurgitate more of my opinions on movies and stuff for you. Oh well!

Amadeus
Believe it or not, I've never seen this movie before. I guess it's not that big a stretch, but given how much I love music and movies it's kind of ridiculous. Anyway, I watched this DVD at my friend Jen's house last Friday and love!

First off, let's talk about Salieri, played by F. Murray Abraham. (Now I get the joke from Last Action Hero, and DO NOT JUDGE ME for seeing and liking that movie.) I could totally relate to the part of this man who knows just enough about music and composing to know that his work is nothing compared to Mozart's. He looks at Mozart's compositions, and he feels like God Himself is composing through Mozart. Being great at music is all Salieri ever wanted, what he promised to God that he would devote his life to, and here's this guy, this raunchy, crass, hilarious genius who has more talent in one of his slightly pink wigs than Salieri has in his entire being. Now, a normal plot would have Salieri jealous of Mozart, but he quickly goes beyond that, determining that God must have a personal vendetta against him, which He flaunts through Mozart. Abraham's playing a character that's HELLA unstable, and he's sympathetic and repellant at the same time, because I can see what a slippery slope it is between jealousy and out and out madness.

Tom Hulce plays Mozart. Can I just get it out of my system really quick that he kind of looks like Chad Lowe? Because it's been distracting me, but now that it's said I feel we can move on. I loved the way he played Mozart. He came off as so child-like to me. Really, he is just a large, precocious child. The gift that he has is as elementary as walking to him, which is why he doesn't seem to get it when continually insults Salieri. He has no concept of how hard it is for most people. Also, he comes across as someone who really just needs people to like him. He seems so insecure, probably because his father so disapproves of him, and particularly with Salieri, all his actions seem to cry out "Look Dad! Look what I can do! Did you see? Did you see me, Dad?" There's just this desperation to be recognized which is kind of mind-blowing considering the guy also has an ego the size of Montana. Hulce was really terrific in the role.

The movie all around is terrific, but there were a few scenes that I thought were particularly amazing, none more so than near the end, where Salieri is helping Mozart with his Requiem. Now, stop reading if you haven't seen and want to see it. Go on, we'll wait. Skip to the book list.

Still with me? Excellent. So Salieri has plotted to drive Mozart to compose the Requiem, and further, plans for Mozart to die and take credit for it as his tribute at the funeral. (How exactly Mozart is supposed to die is murky to Salieri, but he ends up having that taken care of for him, since Mozart basically drives himself into the ground.) Mozart is lying in his bed, racked with fever, but desperate for money and to finish his piece. He's too weak to write, and so Salieri sits at the end of the bed and takes dictation. Mozart is explaining exactly how he wants things to sound, from the chorus to the bassoons and strings. Salieri is just struggling to keep up, and Mozart keeps losing his patience with him. But Salieri's sitting there, writing out this music, and he knows it's genius, and he knows it's not his, but in that moment, he's too busy experiencing this composition coming together to focus on his hate for Mozart, and you can see him getting completely drunk from it, and it's just beautiful.

The whole cast does a great job, and I was especially fond of Jeffrey Jones as Emperor Joseph and Elizabeth Berridge as Stanzi, but really, it's the interaction of Salieri and Mozart that I couldn't tear myself away from. If you haven't seen it yet, Netflix it, it's totally worth it and doesn't at all feel like three hours.

Books I have Lied About Reading
(Suggested by Doppelganger over at 50 Books)

The Grapes of Wrath
Man, we were supposed to read this in high school, and I just hated it. Steinbeck is super-depressing, he totally kills my soul. I read bits and pieces, but honestly, I mostly Cliffnotesed (or rather, Sparknotesed) it. And frankly, I don't think I'm missing that much.

Crime and Punishment
I couldn't get past the first page of this one. Seriously. I totally just read the Cliffnotes and read other people's discussions. Let me know if I missed something great, but I somehow doubt it. (I know, it's great literature, wankity-blah, but I just don't care.)

The Great Gatsby
I have read this now, but I did not actually read it the first time it was assigned to me, which was in high school. I should have just read it because it was really well-done, but Gatsby and Daisy just got on my nerves in high school.

The Reef, and The Age of Innocence
These were assigned in an Austen/Wharton class I took a few semesters ago. At the time, I didn't feel like I had time to read them, but they're on my to-do list now. I really did like The House of Mirth, even though it was a drag.

Emma
Another for the Austen/Wharton class. I'm reading it now, though, and I really like it, though it's kind of slow-going. Emma's kind of a hard character to like for most of the book, isn't she? It helps that I know Clueless was based on it, though, so I know she gets better. (Although Cher was always great.)

Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn
I was supposed to read these for a summer children's lit class and didn't. I feel like they're ones I'll get around to, but I'm not in a hurry for it.

I can't think of a clever/pithy way to end this, so... bye!

Books a Man Has Given Me That Made Me Swear NEVER to Go on Another Date with Him EVER Again

Doppelganger over at 50 Books is doing lists of books this year. Huzzah! I love lists. See the subject line for today for the topic of the first list. Off we go.

• The Kama Sutra. Dude? It's called subtlety. Get some.
• Anything by Chuck Paluhniuk. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy Paluhniuk. But Fight Club and such? Are pretty violent, messed-up books. If a guy gave me that, I'd have no choice but to wonder why, and as such would obsess and come to the conclusion that the guy was a Tyler Durden, and then I'd be bummed that he didn't look like Brad Pitt and I'd be paranoid, so... thanks for playing, we're done.
• A Star Trek Book. Or Star Wars for that matter. Pretty much anything involving galactic civil war. I'm not a geek hater. My ex-boyfriend loves and works in comics for god's sake and I've been known to adore certain ones as well. Y The Last Man, for instance, is a great series, as is anything by Judd Winick and Jhonen Vasquez. I'll even watch the Star [insert subject] movies with you. But if you think I'm going to read that kind of stuff? Nope. Sorry!
• The Catcher in the Rye. Look, I'm sure it's a great book. I've been told it is, but I read it and hated it, and if you give it to me, I'm going to assume you relate to Holden, and then I'll start to hate you. So thanks, but no thanks.

It would take a lot to be a deal-breaker, but I think I can say with confidence, those would definitely break the deal. What would yours be?