Author Archives: Duff

A Tale of Two Cities

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Altering phone service. 65 minutes, seven transfers:

Dear AT&T,
do you have job openings in customer service?
Because the people working there right now? SUCK.
If I did my job that badly, I WOULD HAVE BEEN FIRED A LONG TIME AGO.
I am now being transferred to the SEVENTH person this morning.
You. Suck.

Altering cable service. Two minutes, no transfers:

Dear Comcast,
Your customer service today was EXCELLENT.
Not just in contrast to the suckass service of AT&T but even on its own merits.
In and out in two minutes flat, no transferring me 87 times to other people just as incapable.
Wonderful.
Thanks so much and I’m seriously considering transferring anything I do through AT&T to you instead.

À la Nick Hornby, books in/books out for March.

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Bought:

  • Bone Crossed, by Patricia Briggs
  • Little Bee, by Chris Cleave
  • Maps & Legends, Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands, by Michael Chabon
  • A Homemade Life, by Molly Wizenberg
  • City of Refuge, by Tom Piazza
  • The Lady Elizabeth, by Alison Weir
  • The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan
  • Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi
  • The Ghost Brigades, by John Scalzi

Read:
  • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson (re-read)
  • Antarctica, by Claire Keegan (stories)
  • Bone Crossed, by Patricia Briggs
  • The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larssen
  • A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table, by Molly Wizenberg
  • Flesh and Bone, by Jefferson Bass
  • Domestic Violence, by Eavan Boland (poetry)
  • The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan
  • City of Refuge, by Tom Piazza
  • Circle of the Dead, by Ingrid Black
  • The Feminists Go Swimming, by Michael Collins
  • The Pianist, by Wladyslaw Szpilman

Snappy Is as Snappy Does.

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I always dressed up for deadline days. Heels, skirt, smart green jacket. Magazine publishing has its rhythms and if the editor won’t dance to them, she can’t expect her staff to. I don’t float feature ideas in Fendi heels, and I don’t close an issue in Pumas.

-from “Little Bee” by Chris Cleave, my new read that is totally sucking me in, in a dangerous “may not accomplish anything else this week” way.

Heh (in more ways than one).

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There was a joke he liked. Goes something like this. Two guys meet at the Pearly Gates and get talking. One says to the other: ‘How did you die?’

‘I froze to death,’ he says.

‘What did it feel like?’ says the first one.

‘Well, it’s uncomfortable at first,’ says the second. ‘You shiver, you get the shakes, there’s pain in your fingers and toes, it’s cold as hell, but then it becomes relaxing and you just go numb and fall asleep and that’s it. What about you? How did you die?’

‘I had a heart attack. See, I knew my wife was cheating on me, so I came home early one day, found her in bed, reading. Middle of the afternoon. How suspicious is that? So I ran round the whole house looking for the guy she was fucking. Down to the basement. No one there. Up to the second floor. No one there. Then I ran fast as I could to the attic, I knew he had to be hiding somewhere. Just as I got there – boom. I had a heart attack, and here I am.’

The second man shakes his head.

‘That’s so ironic,’ he says.

‘What do you mean?’

‘If only you’d stopped to look in the freezer, we’d both be alive.’

-from “Circle of the Dead,” by Ingrid Black

Best of January

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Apparently all I did in January was read. The choices in other categories were sparse, my friends, very sparse.

The best movie I saw in January was Coraline.

The best book I read in January was The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, which was just outright excellent. No doubt about it.

The best gig I went to in January DOES NOT EXIST. I didn’t see/hear any live music in January? WTF!

My favorite tunes in January were MGMT “Oracular Spectacular”, new Bon Iver EP “Blood Bank” and Why? “Alopecia.” I was also still listening to Frightened Rabbit “Midnight Organ Fight”. A lot. And other favorites from 2008.

Random personal highlights: Brunch with cousins; tail-end of Cat’s visit including brunch w/ Lauren-O and Petey Sweatshirt; Cinnamon-arranged Stitch ‘n’ Tweet; BStarG returned to TV: fancy dinner for T; Game Day! at my house; Party in Milwaukee; Spamalot. Huh. Pretty good month. In retrospect.

Lowlights? Stress at secondary browsing location. (Shocker, I KNOW.)

January Album Reviews

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Generally January can be quite problematic; I often throw down a shiteload of dough for tunes on other people’s year-end lists and then either never manage to even listen to some of them or decide I hate them. This year, I somehow held back and bought only FOUR albums in January. FOUR. (OK, 4.5 since there was an EP also.) That’s crazy times. (I only bought two in December but that was year-end. That’s sooo different.)

Absolutely Love & Adore:

MGMT “Oracular Spectacular” Only on a million year-end lists. Where has this album been all my life? I’m pretty sure I resisted buying this all of 2008 because I misinterpreted the reviews I read and thought it was some Techno stuff that I wouldn’t like (you know, like JUSTICE from the year before). OMG I was so wrong. Love it like a crazy lady. Not sure I’d be up for seeing them in concert (M. describes it as “two dudes leaning over synthesizers and never moving”) but it is totally living room dance inducing. Fave songs: “Weekend Wars” “Kids” “The Handshake” and my favorite 80s rock soundin tune “Pieces of What”

Why? “Alopecia” Can’t remember where I read about this one, dang. Do you call this rap? (not really. but it’s closer to rap than to singing.) hiphop? (Has beats. but not the R&B hints of hiphop.) It ain’t pop or rock. (It ain’t.) It’s one of those things that just falls between genres but it’s damn good. Fave songs: “Fatalist Palmistry” “Exegesis” (where I love the background so much) and the nasty but so good “Good Friday”

Bon Iver “Blood Bank” EP At this point, you know how I feel about Bon Iver. The feeling continues.

Favorite Singles (not on any of the above albums):

  • “Only You” Assembly (Yaz cover) One of my top-five all-time favorite songs.
  • “Paparazzi” Lady GaGa I can’t tell the difference between her and Gwen Stefani. But I do dig this song.

Other Albums I Liked:

  • Ra Ra Riot “The Rhumb Line” Bought due to its presence on Becky’s list. Absolutely love “Dying Is Fine”. Other standouts are “Winter ’05” and “Each Year”.

  • The Walkmen “You & Me” Also bought due to its presence on Becky’s list. (The girl’s got good taste.) My favorite song is “Red Moon” with its funerealness.

Not really for me / but maybe for you!: Nada!

Shamefully have either not listened to at all, or not all the way through, or so few times that I can’t legitimately offer an opinion: Nada!

Big Screen: Coraline

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Sometimes it ain’t just about the movie. Sometimes it’s about the awesome people you go with, or the personal ziplock of delicious homebaked cookies they bring you, or the boy you see in the audience that you’re bewilderingly too shy to really talk to.

I am not generally an animation fan. But I loved it.

Big Screen: Slumdog Millionaire

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Liked. But did not love.

Good:

  • Oh the romance.
  • Oh the feel-good-ness of it all. The Bollywood dance at the end (the intercutting of them alone, them with crowd, and them as young) was so smile-inducing. Everyone in the theater seemed so happy on the way out.

Bad:

  • The framing technique got old. FAST. They should have ended it about 15 minutes earlier because the movie got SO much better once the stories all came together.
  • So, so, so, SO predictable. You could spot that ending a mile away.

And frankly that last one is what killed it for me. Movies this predictable should not be given awards, if you ask me. Or if they are, with a “*100% predictable” tacked on the end.

Worth seeing, sure. But the Oscar? Eh. Milk should have won. That was predictable only in that IT WAS FROM A TRUE STORY.

(For pete’s sake (who’s pete), Iron Man was less predictable than this!!!!)