Author Archives: Duff

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

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Bought:

  • Matthew Eck “The Farther Shore”
  • Bill Holm “The Windows of Brimnes”
  • Vendela Vida “Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name”
  • Elizabeth Crane “You Must Be This Happy to Enter”
  • Paul Park “A Princess of Roumania” (sci fi/fantasy)
  • Walter Mosley “Fortunate Son”
  • Elliot Perlman “Three Dollars”
  • Robert Hass “Time and Materials” (poems 1997-2005)
  • Making Out in Japanese
  • Patricia Briggs “Iron Kissed”
  • Pat Barker “Life Class”
  • Zachary Lazar “Sway”

Read:
  • Nick Hornby “Housekeeping vs. the Dirt”
  • The Oxford Book of Short Stories, edited by A.S. Byatt
  • Natasha Trethewy “Native Guard” (poetry)
  • Adrian McKinty “Dead I Well May Be” (library book of Silvia’s)
  • Walter Mosley “Fortunate Son”
  • Denis Johnson “Tree of Smoke”
  • Elizabeth Crane “You Must Be This Happy to Enter”

I have yet to write up a single book I read in January. Perhaps later this week. Perhaps.

Playlist: “Why Are You Breaking My Heart?”

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An old playlist rediscovered this week-end. I quite like it, and playlists don’t always stand the test of time. (Party playlists seem to be especially time period-specific.) Not sure who was breaking my heart in Fall 2006, but perhaps I was just in the mood to have it be broken. Sonically, that is.

Why Are You Breaking My Heart?

  • “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out” (cover) – Joseph Arthur
  • “I Don’t Care What You Call Me” – David Ford
  • “I Go to the Barn Because I like the” – Band of Horses
  • “Boston” – Augustana
  • “Winding Up” – Clare Bowditch and the Feeding Set
  • “What Does It Mean Now?” – World Party
  • “Skeleton Key” – Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s
  • “Never Yours” – Tracy Chapman
  • “Unspoken Love” – The Electric Farm
  • “Home” – Barenaked Ladies
  • “You” – Switchfoot
  • “That’s How I Knew This Story Would Break My Heart” – Aimee Mann
  • “Jessie’s Girl” (cover) – Matt the Electrician
  • “Steady as We Go” – Dave Matthews
  • “Slow New York” – Richard Julian
  • “We Are Man and Wife” – Michelle Featherstone
  • “All This Dust” – Canasta

DadReaction: Cloverfield

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It got me, I loved it. They never break the premise: You’re seeing the whole thing with this handheld and you never find out anything else, you just see what’s on the tape. It really wrapped me up. I loved the music.

But you know, I told somebody about it the next day and he said his daughter said it was the worst movie she’d ever seen in her entire life. And that she’d read somewhere that on the sneak preview cards, the only grades the movie got were either As or Fs.

If you don’t “go with it” you’re going to be thinking “Who cares?” To me, it was very believable. The desperation of some of these people, and the fights… woah, look out. I thought it was just so effective.

À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…

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Making: Shower gifts. Self portraits (damn you, 365 flickr project, you are killing me).

Reading: After reading the same two books for the first three weeks of the month (“Tree of Smoke” by Denis Johnson and “The Oxford Book of English Short Stories” edited by A.S. Byatt ), I’m now in a flurry of finishing, those plus some others thrown in. I haven’t written any January reads up yet, but you can always view the current year’s list to know what’s going on. Just finished the Johnson on my way to work today so tonight it’ll be pick out a new book time. Yay! (Either that, or wait until tomorrow when I have time to go to the bookstore and pick up the new Pat Barker.)

Watching: I finished “catching up” with How I Met Your Mother on my majorly delayed in every direction plane rides this weekend, whipping through the end of season 2 and all that’s been shown of season 3 so far (this strike cannot end soon enough!). While Barney cracks me the fuck up (and damn, nice abs, boy), I think Marshall is my favorite character. And I haven’t seen ANY new movies because instead I just keep going with people to see Juno (their first times, my second, and third, and fourth) again and again.

Listening: Over and over again to Sea Wolf “Leaves in the River”, as I have been since mid-December. Also Matt Costa “Unfamiliar Faces”; he has a real sense of fun and joy (and quirkiness) in his tunes. Cat Power “Jukebox” although I like the first three-four songs the best and I usually move on after that. Bought some new stuff in San Fran but haven’t listened yet…

TV: Terminator Sarah Connor Chronicles

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I’m not feeling quite as enthusiastic toward this show as I was last week…as the longer you watch, the more it seems they have dumbed down the terminators. As my dad points out, clearly they don’t program them to “look both ways before crossing the street” as both Eps 1 and 2 featured a terminator/car collision, virtually identical shots. And as each episode has progressed, all the way through 3, Summer Glau’s character becomes more and more mechanical, actually the opposite direction you would expect her to be going given how much time she’s spending with the humans.

In the first episode, she / her character was credibly passing as a fellow student (as well as the bad dude terminator who appeared credibly human while taking attendance up until calling on John…but since then is complete machine). In Ep 3, every (somehwat bizarre or “non human”) thing she does is followed by her staring blankly at the humans around her. Way to blend in, not. Why is her ability to modify her terminatorish behavior to appear more human actually decreasing?

Liked seeing the soft side of Sarah / just burns down Andy’s dreams and all the work of his past three (or was it five? can’t remember) years instead of killing him. Of course, he has no idea he’s getting off easy. But didn’t really like the subplot at the school / with the mysterious painting slowly revealing the suicide girl’s presumed indiscretions. Also note the new cute girl John keeps bumping into. Should we assume she’s actually human? 🙂 Like the leads, like the acting, but it’s not really that good. Still…better than Bionic Woman was and that’s really the “compare” I’ve been using in my head for this show.

DVD: Die Hard Marathon

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#1 / Die Hard / The original: Awesome. Just as fun now as it was then. An intelligent crook, surrounded by dufus henchman. An enterprising hero. Great one liners. Great byplay with the LA cop. Lots of fun.

#2 Die Harder: Eh. Pretty much sucks. The double double-cross at the end was lame. The many many references to “why does this keep happening to me/us?” wink wink were lame. The newscaster on the plane? Moron. But it does have one redeeming moment: when Bruce Willis kills the dude by stabbing him in the eye with a huge icicle!

#3 Die Hard: With a Vengeance: Enjoyable, although not great (it’s no #1). Liked that they introduced a new character not connected to either the cops or the crime. Some discontinuity with him being back in NY considering in #2 he has moved to LA and become a cop there / #3 acts like #2 never happened (I guess we can’t blame it for that…). Liked that they figure out it’s subterfuge but a little “same old thing again” on the crime / McClane should have figured it out faster!

#4 Live Free or Die Hard: Years later, an update to the franchise! Entertaining! I liked that they updated it to a very modern-day crime, rather than just a rehash of the same type of terrorism (as really both #s 2 and 3 were — unlike other movies I could name from 2007 that took an “old story” and just did the same old thing with it). Liked the byplay with the kid from the apple commercials. Sort of predictable substituting the presence of the daughter instead of the mother, but fine. But things that made it less enjoyable were: a) too many explosions for no reason (rewatch #1, where the explosions are more integral to the plot!); b) if the Gabriel dude is such an amazing hacker, why would he have all these underlings doing his hacking for him now? seems like he would want to be doing it himself, and the actor seemed too young for the role (since he was meant to be the contemporary of the head FBI dude); c) McClane seems a bit dumbed down from #1 certainly and perhaps #3 as well.

Gold Medal: #1
Silver: #4
Bronze: #3
Not even an honorable mention, but for the icicle: #2.

Cable: Trust the Man

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One of those movies with a bunch of recognizable actors that disappeared from theaters very fast so you know it must’ve been disappointing. I am normally a huge Billy Crudup fan but I hated the goatee action here. Frankly Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character was the only one I didn’t want to give a good shaking to. And the ending is bizarrely happy and “everything falling into place” after the extremely negative tones of the rest of it. Occasional laughs or relationship insights, but for the most part not very good. Not horrible, but not really enjoyable either.

I’m missing TV something fierce.

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No I’m not so thrilled with having nothing to watch and therefore spending more time reading/pondering/being a deep person or what have you. I already do plenty of reading even when I am watching TV every night!!! Jackhats.

Anyway, while I am missing it severely I suddenly felt motivated to post to the TV blog. So there you go.