2005 book 138

colm toibin's the master
this book is making the rounds among people whose taste in books i tend to respect--josh gave it to christina who gave it to me--but i don't think i liked it quite as much as they did. i think my problem is the problem that's inherent in novelizing a real person--there are certain things that have to be included, even if they don't make the story flow as well. also, henry james just didn't do much besides hobnob with various society people and write books. things definitely picked up in the second half, although the disappearance of several characters i thought would have more importance was a little frustrating. i did enjoy all of the bits revolving around the writing of "turn of the screw" (the only thing james wrote that i actually enjoyed reading), although the depictions of his writing process were certainly unflattering--james comes across as a scavenger, mining stories he hears and people he knows to get material for his work.

i guess this is coming across as a negative review, and i don't really mean it to be. i can't think of much else to say about it though . . . mayvbe toibin got a little ambitious here, or something.

i love vh1 loving the 80s

hey, i'm really enjoying the current go-round of 80s nostalgia on vh1 (i love the 80s: 3D! note that it's not actually in 3D--it's just the third 80s nostalgiathon they've done). apparently all my favorite 80s things are third-string--we're finally seeing stuff on snorks, monchichis, and mannequin. the interesting thing about watching two in a row is that it's more noticeable that the commenters always have the same clothes on. i wonder how long they have to sit and try and think of snarky and witty things to say about bad movies and big hair--i mean, do they just take a day where the producers sit them in a chair and show them a my buddy doll (my family totally had my buddy AND kid sister) or whatever, for hours on end? i am impressed at the stamina of these d-list celebs--i would run out of thigns to say pretty quickly, unless they had something totally awesome to show me, like clips from just one of the guys. man, i must have seen that movie a million times, and it never really got good. side note: the blonde girl that rick likes in that movie is also in one of my favorite cheesy horror movies, april fool's day (other 80s luminaries in the cast include the dude who played rick, a girl from friday the 13th part 2, and most famously, the dude who played biff in back to the future).

ETA: i have just been informed that it actually IS in 3D--but of course i don't have 3D glasses so was unaware of this. apparently best buy is giving 3D glasses away so you can fully enjoy the experience of watching michael ian black say something silly (or so you can get a little nauseous, whichever).

the usual announcement

i'm djing today (as i generally do on thursdays) from 2-4 pm: 88.7 or wxdu.org. playlist will be here or thereabout.

2005 book 137

gideon defoe's the pirates! in an adventure with scientists
well, this was a very silly book. full of lots of cute anachronisms and goofballs and dimwits, this book straddles the line between amusing and overly-hipster-pretentious (but never crosses it) as a band of wacky pirates encounter a young charles darwin. i would not be surprised to see excerpts from this sort of thing in a mcsweeney's publication, for instance. anyway, at a scant 133 pages, it's a nice harmless diversion, and i might even read the sequel for more silly pirate goodness.

link round-up

uh-oh! look out, pittsburgh!
(it's true, though--the city was pretty ravaged during the night of the living dead and the subsequent dawn of the dead.)

hey, science proves that hobbits liked food.

and: what the hell. it's interesting, because i often wonder why there aren't more shows with jewish characters, but i'm not sure this is what i was looking for . . .

an open letter to nickelodeon

Dear Nickelodeon,

Last night while channel-surfing before I love the 80s: 3D was coming on [hey, I like shows where D-list celebrities wax nostalgic and snark about my childhood, ok?] I came across your show Zoey 101. During the bits I saw, Zoey and her brunette friend were upset about their new roommate, a "freak" who they were plotting to kick out. They eventually said something like "She can be normal or she can move back to Weirdsville!"

I really have to wonder about the message this was sending to the preteen girls watching your show. So little goth girls can't hang out with "normal" girls in their halter tops and tight jeans? It's conform or get out? I was fully expecting Zoey and her friend to discover the little goth girl was acutally sweet and intelligent under her cotton-candy-pink hair and eyeliner and realize that understanding each other's differences would make them better people. But instead, it is revealed that the "freak" is actually an actress PRETENDING to be a freak! Problem solved! Soon she is in trendy clothes (and I'm sure the Fug Blog would have something to say about her belt over dress over jeans ensemble) along with her new friends.

Seriously--what the hell, Nickelodeon?? Who writes this show, ultraconservative PTA moms? "Dress differently and you'll be an outcast"--that is NOT a positive message by any stretch of the imagination, and it's certainly not funny. I find this attitude especially odd considering that one of the main characters on your show Danny Phantom is Sam, a little goth girl who eschews conforming with the popular kids, and still remains the titular hero's best friend and love interest. I strongly suggest you remove this episode of Zoey 101 from your rotation and show Danny Phantom intead.

Sincerely,

Alicia Korenman (not a goth)

PS--Avatar: The Last Airbender is an awesome show! Please show it more, and on a more regular schedule. Having shows start at 7:52 is very confusing. If I had a TIVO I'd probably be pretty annoyed about your weird tv schedules.

2005 book 136

lucia nevai's seriously
a little slip of a book about a photographer at a crossroads in life, with a tragic past moves to a new town, etc--the usual drill, but somehow the characters are compelling and funny and heartbreaking enough to make it work.

2005 book 135

edward eager's seven-day magic
one of the best things to do on a nice chilly fall sunday afternoon is to curl up with a favorite book.

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well, this is shaping up to be an awesome weekend: schooner and strugglers last night were awesome, i've gotten some spinning done, and i made pumpkin cupcakes! check it out, i even colored the icing all orangish for autumn! YUMMMMM, pumpkin things are my favorite.

and later i'm seeing the wallace and gromit movie, followed by hotel lights and the rosebuds at the cradle!

tomorrow: mirrormask? and homework. but i think after such a fun weekend i can stand a little homework. :)

hee!

this neatly encapsulates why torch marauder is so awesome.

can some durham local hook me up w/ a copy of that cd? or tell me if they're selling it somewhere? carrboro residents like the life and science museum too . . .

2005 book 134

kate atkinson's case histories
when genres collide! literary fiction meets detective-type books in this novel, where three cold cases and one private eye become intertwined. i liked it a lot, actually--there were a few parts where i was all, "gaaah, this is so predictable!" but by the end i was pleased with the storylines, as atkinson wrapped things up fairly subtly. apparently her next book will also featurethis detective, and just like the classic genre mysteries, a few pages of the next book appear at the end of this one, and it seems a lot more traditional. so if you're a mystery reader, check this out, and be assured that its followup will conform to the norms of your genre, but in the meantime you might like all these characters, 'cause they're very nicely written.

djing

hey, i'm on the air from 2-4 today. 88.7/wxdu.org, as always. and there's now a handy link to my playlists on the sidebar of this site! EXCITING.

2005 book 133

sarah hall's the electric michelangelo
i'm too tired to really dothis justice right now, but here's the short version: booker-nominated novel about a british kid who grows up to be a tattoo artist in coney island. really well-written and great characters, trails off a little at the end, but definitely recommended. hall will be at the regulator soon, or maybe she was already there, who knows? not me, b/c i'm rather nap than look it up. :)

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who knew carpal tunnel could be so cool??? suddenly my arm splints are the awesomest things ever! these are just a few of the new signatures--the blue one is john vanderslice, the circley one is mac, and the adorable rodent thing is laura. jim wilbur is on the other side of this one (click through for photos) so now i have 3/4 of superchunk! kelly rosebud wrote an adorable thing on my other arm which i have a blurry photo of--it's hard to do left-handed photos. thanks again to christina for corralling rock stars for my entertainment and to make my splints actually fun to wear. :)

anyway, awesome show tonight, not least b/c both portastatic and jv played my favorite songs of theirs!! i was thrilled to hear mac do "center of the world" which is my favorite track from the new album, and jv did "me and my 424" whcih is my ALL-TIME FAVORITE jv song (jared's too!). oh, i took some pics of the bands--click through for those too.

yay for tuesdays!

2005 book 132

lemony snicket's the penultimate peril
ARG! dang that title! now i can't use the word "penultimate" in this entry to talk about this series, and harry potter, and conclusions. oh well. anyway, the 12th lemony snicket book came out today, and it's pretty good--i mean, if you're a fan, you'll like it, probably. it features the return of many previous character, most of whom i didn't really remember, and some great new ones, including a sub-sub-librarian (named, of course, dewey). librarians abound in fiction these days!

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so this weekend everyone was making fun of my splints for being undecorated--i mean really, like 6 people said something about it! so over dinner we started joking that i should get dan bejar to sign my splints, b/c jared had a sharpie with him and it was funny.

oh yeah, awesome show tonight: i liked immaculate machine a lot--that's the band w/ a.c. newman's cousin, the newest new pornographer. and destroyer of course was awesome, playing mostly old stuff--i can't wait to hear the new songs live though!! he even dedicated a song to the treacherous fops, who of course i strongly believe were the best destroyer backup band ever (maybe i'm biased 'cause i love those guys, but seriously, that show rocked). and the new pornographers were adorable and played plenty of their old fun stuff and did two encores--great closer of "letter to an occupant"--totally high-energy and fun. and kate t. had a great yelled conversation w/ a.c. newman, who played her request 'cause she gave them raspberry beer from new orleans--tooooo hilarious.

so annnnyway, after the show dan was talking to christina and she made him sign my splint for me. this reads: "dan bejar says i want this to get better s--" and the rest of soon is written on my other arm. :) i think this photo came out ok considering i took it with my left hand. christina then decided we should get john vanderslice and portastatic to decorate the other sides on tuesday, in red and/or green sharpie.

i think rock star goofiness is much better than ribbons and sparkles, but that's jsut me. :) thank you dan bejar!! you are totally nice!! no wonder all the ladies love you!

(and thank you christina for getting him to sign it, and jared for having a sharpie!)

oh, also: a bunch of my favorite girls and i saw elizabethtown this afternoon. it didn't suck as much as i was expecting--i really liked all the family scenes--but it felt like cameron crowe was trying to squeeze two movies into one, and a lot of the romantic scenes (esp. the extended phone call montage) didn't work for me. i did, however, love both rusty and freebird. and judy greer.

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apparently the hamsters aren't done with me yet--these little guys arrived on yom kippur, considerably brightening up the day of atonement fasting thing. and gee, they were mailed from los angeles . . . i wonder who's behind them? ;)

thank you, hamster-giver! they glow in the dark and that is totally awesome.

on an unrelated note, yesterday my grandmother pointed out that perhaps my insane typing style is aggravating my carpal tunnel--because, of course, i type with only about 5 fingers (and yet still manage 78 wpm). i havent typed w/ all ten fingers since eighth grade keyboarding class, so trying to type correctly will be an interesting challenge. i'm failing miserably at it right now . . .

2005 book 131

luis alberto urrea's the hummingbird's daughter
reminiscent of isabel allende's recent zorro, except about a girl who becomes a medicine woman instead of a sword-fighting dude, this was a pretty good story. it definitely drags in the middle, but picks up again by the end. apparently it's based on a true story about a relative of urrea's, but honestly i'd rather have read a book about his discovery of all of this info than this story itself--not that all its political turmoil and saints and illegitimate children and discussion of class aren't interesting. it's just that this was urrea's first novel (although he's written a bunch of non-fiction stuff), and sometimes it shows.

vqr/art spiegelman

dudes, it is time to subscribe to virginia quarterly review. the folks over at bookslut have been touting its awesomeness for ages, but, foolishly, i didn't pay attention. and so i almost missed art spiegelman's new serialized story, portrait of the artist as a young %@?*! which, by the way, is REALLY GOOD. i was fortunate enough to read a copy tonight and was pretty blown away. i know it'll be published in book form eventually, but do you really want to wait that long? no, you do not. i will be trying to track a copy down locally (i guess it's sacrilegious to go to the regulator on yom kippur, but a quick errand on the way to dinner in durham might just be the thing!).

nerves

so, it turns out getting electric shocks for two and a half hours kind of sucks. a lot.

for the first hour i composed many amusing blog entries in my head, on topics like: the strengthening of my electrical superpowers, how my hair was going to turn out all crimped like in movies when people get electrocuted, how the resident smelled like my high-school boyfriend. by hour two i was mostly concentrating on not wincing too obviously, and hiding my head under my sweater so the doctors wouldn't see my grimace. by the time it went past two hours of getting shocked (and they had started shocking my leg for some reason that i still don't comprehend) i was openly crying (but trying to be a good sport; i kept telling them it was fine as they shocked me). i esimate that i was given over 150 shocks in my left arm alone.

the good news: the tests were normal so i didn't have to have subsequent tests involving needles and won't have to have surgery. the bad news: i can still feel electricity bouncing around in me, and i'm still confined to the splints and still in a lot of arm pain that's not related to electric shocks.

time for my last meal before the fast: weaver street sushi and cupcake!

muppets!

look what i have in my hot little hands! [actually my hands are usually cold, but that's not as good an expression.]

thank you pinky!!!!

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my (very) early hanukkah present came today--a (refurbished) kitchenaid mixer (color: ICE). and just in time to make cupcakes for cassidy's birthday! i am so excited. it's basically the best appliance ever--now i just need the ice cream attachment and i'll be queen of desserts! or maybe the princess of desserts--that seems more fun.

2005 book 130

gerard woodward's i'll go to bed at noon
who knew a story about a british family in the 70s mostly comprised of alcoholics could be so compelling and even amusing? sure, there are some dark parts, but the lovable drunks balance out the scary ones, and the crazy stuff is sort of taken in stride. i totally loved the ending, especially.

recommendations?

what should i read? (note that it's hard for me to hold paperbacks for long periods of time, which is beyond frustrating.) schoolwork should lessen in a week or so and i'll be craving some good stories by then!

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girls' night out at kings to see the rosebuds involved lots of temporary tattoos (thank you ivan rosebud!) and some drinks and some great music. the rosebuds are playing the cradle on the 22nd with hotel lights and it's not even a school night so you all should come. (also schooner and the strugglers are playing 506 on the 21st so it's a great weekend for music.)

although let me jusy say, while one sparks is awesome, two is like asking for death to come knock on your door. my, my, my. caffeine and alcohol is like the wackiest combination ever, and made for some extra-wacky photography of the show, which can be viewed by clicking on this photo here and browsing around flickr. it's all so . . . red.

ooh!! i want this shirt like whoa.

but yeah--the rosebuds rock! their new album ROCKS!!!!!!! their live show totally rocks. so don't miss it again!!!

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it's always funny to come home from getting an awesome haircut to hear some kid on ANTM whining about getting a similar cut. suck it, sister! you don't know what you're missing.

of course, her hair wasn't purple like mine currently is, so maybe that's why she was so upset.

djing/playlists

starting during tomorrow's show (2-4 pm, of course!), my playlists will be available online, here. i might enter in some old ones eventually, too.

mirrormask

it looks like mirrormask is opening across the triangle on the 21st. woo!

daily show

let me be the first to say: new daily show correspondent nate corddry (brother of rob) is totally adorable!

also, the daily show is just about the only thing getting me through these trying times. thank you for making me laugh about the crappy state of the world, jon stewart, or else i would probably be crying.

also, please continue to feature adorable correspondents. or else samantha bee, 'cause she's really funny.

2005 book 129

elizabeth crane's all this heavenly glory
i had some mixed feelings about this book. on the one hand, i liked the structure--stories/chapters all about one character, alternating between her adulthood and childhood--and i also especially liked the bits focusing on her childhood, but on the other hand, the stream-of-consciousness adult sections were a little wearing. i started losing track of the parenthetical-notes-within-parenthetical-notes--and god knows i use parentheses enough to be forgiving of that sort of thing! so anyway, a mixed bag. great cover though.

good things of the day: high holiday services with friends, favorite songs on mix cds, new shoes, postacrds from friends for no reason, and apple crisp!

those wacky vegetarians

i had some propaganda from this group stuck into my door when i came home from seeing a movie this evening--it featured a kitten and a piglet with "which do you pet? which do you eat? WHY?" in bold yellow letters (i would scan it for you, but my external keyboard and mouse are using all my usb ports).

this of course amused me on several levels, because even when i wasn't a vegetarian (and i've been one for over half my life now, more or less) i surely did not eat piglets, or pigs of any variety, due to being a good jewish girl.

so, there you go, vegetarian propagandists! a convert! good for you. way to hit your target audience.

speaking of being a good jewish girl, rosh hashanah begins tomorrow night. i actually ran out of apples a day or so ago whihc means an emergency trip to the weav will take place tomorrow! i'm not sure yet what i'll be baking on tuesday, but it will be full of appley goodness.

l'shana tova, everyone! err, every jewish one!