Another reminder to self post: I keep forgetting to buy these two and I can’t keep carrying around this email I sent myself…
The Genius, by Jesse Kellerman (also mentioned here)
To the Power of Three, by Laura Lippman (also mentioned here)
Author Archives: Duff
Book I keep reading about.
Netherland by Joseph O’Neill. Called “possibly the most impressive post-9/11 novel yet” somewhere that I copied & printed out and then promptly forgot wherefrom. Looked at it in the bookstore but couldn’t decide…
Who writes the ads for Spike TV?
A couple weeks ago I was watching a crapload of CSI reruns so I basically had at least three hours of SpikeTV on every day and they were promoting their big week-end showings of Star Wars.
The ads really cracked me up.
I can’t remember, was this one said in a Yoda voice?: Being a bad guy isn’t bad. There is much to be learned.
Han and Leia: If your sister hangs out with your friends, eventually one of them is going to hook up with her.
Too funny!
Fiction: Lush Life, by Richard Price
A bday present from Carla who must’ve seen me mention it here. 😉
Price does such a good job of sucking you into each character’s point of view. I kept changing who I was rooting for / who I thought was guilty / who deserved a serious smackdown. He is also just brilliant at maintaining the main plotline while also delving into all the little conflicts going on in the substories around it. Every character, every story, every little grouping of people is fully fleshed out and palpably human.
And the dialogue? Holy crap, no wonder they make this guy’s books into movies. The dialogue is just spot-on in every scene.
Combine this great book with Minty’s recent Coney Island and Mermaid Parade photos and I was missing NYC something fierce for a week there.
Fiction: Life Class, by Pat Barker
I really, really canNOT understand the reviews for this book: all of which seem to compare it unfavorably to her earlier Regeneration trilogy and some of which I just find ludicrous (“Tellingly, many critics mentioned as their favorite character one with little more than a walk-on—the real-life artist, teacher, and surgeon Henry Tonks, whom they hope to see more of in a sequel“. What? NO.).
I didn’t think the first half of the book was “slow” as so many have said / I thought the first half was about a bunch of very unhappy people, some of whom are actually happier when the war comes (second half) because it gives their life some direction they hadn’t seemed to be able to find before it. Life does move slower when you’re unhappy, don’t you know.
I loved the descriptions of the art in this book; I could *almost* see the paintings in my mind and I really wish most of them existed. (Similar to how I felt about the paintings in Siri Hustvedt’s “What I Loved”.)
I found it moving and insightful and while it does continue to crack me up that so many contemporary British writers are often to be found writing about WWI and II (because there just haven’t been any conflicts in the world since then, right?) in a way you don’t find quite as often on this side of the pond, I think Pat Barker is (and continues to be) one of the best.
DadReaction: In Bruges
Howling [with laughter]. Off the wall. Black humor. Incredibly funny. Colin Farrell is so hilarious.
Dad is the second person in two weeks to recommend this movie to me.
DVD: Rendition
Powerful. Emotionally moving. And extremely fucking depressing.
This IS what is going on ALL THE TIME in our world today and fuck who wants to live in a world like that.
p.s. Do Peter Sarsgaard and Jake Gyllenhaal have some clause in their contracts that they have to be in at least 90% of each other’s movies?
Bad, bad girl.
The list of things you should never do includes: walk 45 minutes home in blazing sunshine with no sunscreen on.
But you know what? I’m doin’ it anyway! That’s exactly the kind of daredevil I am.
Hahahahahahaha, sometimes I really crack myself up.
Dear (already grotesque anyway) upper arms: prepare to have a nice Farmer tan for the rest of the summer. Sucks for you!
580-Calorie Breakfast.
McDonald’s Southern Chicken on a Biscuit (like you’ve died and gone to Heaven): 410 calories.
12-oz. can of Mt. Dew: 170 calories.
Yum. Yum. Motherfucking yum.
À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…
Eating: All I want to eat is crap. Particularly the Special Dark Hershey’s Chocolate Kisses that I bought to send to Max (and Alison) and then never put in the mail…Whoops. Their loss, my ass’s gain.
Making: Almost done with the second thick woolly sleeveless vest (WHATEVER!). Hoping to finish the top of Kysa’s Friendship Star quilt (a.k.a. Friendship Star #2) and then sandwich/baste/and quilt BOTH that AND the quick baby quilt top I whipped up over the weekend and get them in the mail to her by the 9th, which is supposedly the date on which the baby boy is going to pop out. I’m hoping he’s late (although I’m sure she’s not!!).
Reading: Was supposed to start July’s challenge book yesterday (!), but picked it up and almost had my arm drop off due to the weight. Guess I won’t be reading that one in transit!! So instead I’ve started “Trespass” by Valerie Martin which is prickly and dark and promises to get moreso.
Watching: Since my dad started watching BSG, I started watching it ALL OVER AGAIN (I know!) so that when he calls me and says OH MY GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS JUST HAPPENED, I know specifically what episode he’s talking about (and in what order) and I don’t accidentally give away a spoiler like I almost did the other night… Of course I have way more time in my day than he has in his, so I’ve already gotten past where he is. Maybe I’ll wait for him to catch up. I mean, I so would, except for there being fucking nothing else for me to watch right now. And I saw “Wanted” which I loved as much as I thought I would and maybe I’ll write a post on that for ya say over the long-ass holiday weekend during which I HAVE TO WORK ON SUNDAY and will not be in Southern Illinois with all my Blonde K-Cousins as I like to call ’em. Waah.
Listening: I listened to Matt Costa (which I mentioned here and here among other places) all weekend long, over and over, after introducing someone to him on Thursday night when we were at my house “playing DJ” since we thought we were going to see Meg Hutchinson at Uncommon Ground but she wasn’t there (???) and instead there were these really pretty mediocre singers basically doing karaoke and I’m sorry but Alanis Morrisette “You Oughta Know” done on acoustic guitar with a husky Melissa Etheridge wannabe voice and admonitions to the audience to please “Join in!” ??? I don’t think so.
But now I’m listening almost exclusively to the NEW! Earlimart “Hymn and Her” out yesterday that is AWESOME. Oh I love me some Earlimart (for example, this is how much I loved their previous album and here is where they were in my favorite albums of 2007) and Hello! Score! coming to Chicago on the 26th at the teeny tiny Hideout. Woot. Yes, I bought tickets. Yay! (Or, as a former coworker would say “I’m stoked!”)
Oh and while the whole “Meg Hutchinson not being playing although that’s the only reason we went” issue sucked, I did have some incredible pistachio-encrusted tilapia that pretty much blew my mind and this wacky french Apple-flavored beer that was DELISH. So there’s that.