Monthly Archives: September 2007

À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…

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Making: Same as last week, although I do have something on the blocking board I may get to sometime this week. Maybe…Quilting friendship star blocks. Knitting socks.

Reading: “Love Walked In” by Marisa de los Santos. I’m just about done though. I would be done if I hadn’t had to stand on the train this morning, and then things got all herky jerky and I fell into someone’s lap (no joke!) and was too embarrassed to pull out a book after that because what if it happened again and my book went flying and hit someone in the head or something….

Watching: Premieres! Yay! So far this week watched Heroes, Bones, Reaper (LOVED!), Chuck, 1/2 of Journeyman (hopefully I’ll finish that tonight), and the second episode of K-Ville. Still have House premiere and current episode of Damages on the DVR menu. More premieres to come tonight. Yay!

Listening: Nothing I haven’t mentioned here already…. my 1, 2, 3 albums so far this year The National, Okkervil River, Earlimart, new stuff from Kanye and Josh Ritter and James Blunt, and lots of French rap…. and Hard Fi “Once Upon a Time in the World” which I bought on a total whim the other night and really like! Rock/punk/FUN!

Caught ya!

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She thought about that word “capture,” how it put a writer on par with a fur trapper or big-game hunter, and how it implied that stories were whole and roaming around loose in the world, and a writer’s job was to catch them. Except of course that a writer didn’t kill what she caught, didn’t stuff it and hang it on a wall; the point was to keep the stories alive. She felt skeptical about this way of thinking of writing, she decided, but was glad to have considered it.
–Maria de los Santos, “Love Walked In”

Two Belgian Artists.

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really loved them both.

  • Constant Montald – who made sort of “art deco” feeling paintings (you can see two I took pictures of here and here, that were in the lobby of the art museum in Brussels)
  • Fernand Khnopff – his paintings have a pre-raphaelite feel to me. You can really see that in some of these. Here’s another favorite although it’s too small to really see…

Posted in Art

Netflix: Eulogy

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This movie is HILARIOUS. Side-splittingly funny family farce. Along the lines of The Royal Tennenbaums, but less dark (despite it being funeral-focused). Ray Romano and Hank Azaria are funny, as expected, and Debra Winger is really funny, playing against type. Loved it.
Lots of completely inappropriate, non-PC humor, which is really the best kind, right? Everyone knows that the only gay relationships that work are between people of the same height. Or Azaria having told his daughter (Zoey Deschanel, so sweet) that her mom died when she was young “from being a social worker who cared too much.” (Turns out she was actually a porno actress.) Too funny.

In Concert: The National

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Totally awesome show. The lead singer has a voice so deep, it feels like it reaches down to the very bottom of your soul. Their new album is probably my top listen of the year and this show just made me like them that much more. Ranks right up there with Gomez as the top two gigs of the year thus far.
Consummate musicians, tunes sounded great, stage banter was minimal but fine, lead’s antics were perplexing and sometimes humorous. Lovely lovely sounds. Beautiful show.

Nonfiction: “Under the Banner of Heaven” by Jon Krakauer

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subtitle: “A Story of Violent Faith”. KC gave me this for Christmas and it’s probably something I would not have bought on my own. But daaaammmmmn is it good. Following several crimes committed by Mormon “Fundamentalists” (those who have broken away from the “mainstream” LDS Mormon church), it goes through the history of Mormonism itself, the philosophy of many of the breakaway sects, interviews with current members of regular Mormonism, fundamental Mormonism, as well as “apostates” (excommunicated members), and members who ran away from it all (Run! RUN FAR!!!!!).

It is incredibly researched and extremely well written and I could barely put it down long enough to go to sleep at night. Completely compelling reading about crazy, scary people. Extra kudos to Krakauer for including the rebuttal from the LDS Mormons (who aren’t really the FOCUS of the book anyway) and going through it point by point to either acknowledge errors or alternately say “Nope, I am right on that.”

Extremism in any area of life (religion, adventure, etc.) is not necessarily something I’m interested in, but it’s so well written, it was well worth reading.

Fiction: “Don’t Make a Scene” by Valerie Block

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Diane Kurasik, 40 years old, single, manager of the Beford Street cinema, finds herself in a summer of unexpected change. Evicted as her building is bought, romantically uninvolved but searching, searching, searching, expanding her theater… She continually compares her life to the movies and finds it lacking (who doesn’t, right?). And then the last third of the book unexpectedly (to me) turns into a May-September story (is that what you call it? a younger/ older romance?).

I really enjoyed this but I wasn’t very interested in the character of Vladimir and found it hard to believe Diane was either. Javier, on the other hand, I could understand.

Loved the movie references and the bits of history (wow, I will never look at Cary Grant the same way ever again). It’s referential the way the “Special Topics in Calamity Physics” was…except this is both better written and better edited. (Completely different type of plot, however.)

In Concert: Common

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I really enjoy Common’s style; a mix of hip hop, R&B, rap. The rapper bragadocio (sp?) combined with a socially concious mind. I really enjoyed this concert…until the point where he referred to Michael Vick as “Misunderstood”*. Actually, I’d say Michael Vick has been understood for exactly what he is, a criminal who belongs in jail. There is no excuse for cruelty to dogs.

*Misunderstood is a song where he name checks in the chorus. “Malcolm X = Misunderstood.” Certainly. “Tupac Shakur = Misunderstood.” In a different way than Malcolm, but OK I can see how you could make the argument there. He slowly moves into the living. “Erykah Badu = Misunderstood.” I know nothing about her, but OK. “Lauryn Hill = Misunderstood.” I’ve heard she’s a little crazy, so OK. but “Michael Vick = Misunderstood”? No, no, and no. Not misunderstood at all. Criminal.

Opener: Joss Stone. She certainly has impressive range, but it’s not really my kind of music. (Pretty much pure R&B).