Making: A second Curious George quilt as well as another stripe-y baby quilt. Yadda yadda.
Reading: Short stories by infamous blogger Tod Golberg: “Simplify”. They’re good. As witty and sarcastic as you would have guessed, but more tender than I expected.
Watching: Catching up on TV I was too lazy to watch last week (you know, the ones I don’t HAVE to watch that night when I get home: DS$, Reaper, Gossip Girl), season two of How I Met Your Mother after Michelle got me totally addicted and we whipped through all of Season 1 while she was here, and re(re)watching earlier episodes from the current seasons of Bones and FNL. New (random) episode of The Closer on tonight! Yay! Really want to see both August Rush and Juno (opens tomorrow!) this week.
Listening: To the new Radiohead “In Rainbows”. Yes, I broke down and bought it after Paul said it’s all he’s listened to in two weeks and then it started popping up on everyone’s year-end lists. I haven’t listened to Radiohead in YEARS but I do find this “listenable” which is more than I could say for their last few albums. Also finally bought Augie March “Moo, You Bloody Choir” (it was out in Australia when we went but I had bought an older album instead at the time) and Brother Ali “The Undisputed Truth” (yay! needed some new rap).
Author Archives: Duff
Mystery: “True Evil” by Greg Iles
You know when something in a book can just creep you out so much because you don’t know whether it’s something the author just dreamed up out of nowhere or if he’s read about it and the ability to do that horrible thing is actually out there right now in the real world and could be happening to people? And I’m not talking “horrible thing” like something in a crazy horror/ slasher/ murder flick. I’m talking subtly yicky yicky mentally-disturbing “what if people are really doing that?” horrible. And it’s not the part about hiring someone to kill off your spouse instead of you going through a divorce. I’ve still kinda got the skeeves. But that’s really why you read a book like this one: to get your scary kicks.
Mystery: “Deal Breaker” by Harlan Coben
Not your typical genre piece in that the main character is a sports agent rather than a PI, or retired cop, or former FBI agent or whathaveyou. Yet your typical genre piece with the “tougher than the main dude” sidekick (think Joe Pike in the Elvis Cole books). Some really yicky aspects to the mystery. Still: very enjoyable, lots of sarcastic witty humor. Already bought the second one.
Short Stories: “Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work” by Jason Brown
Very intense set of stories; it took me a while to realize they were all taking place in the same town, with some recurring characters in the background (references to the same basketball coach, for example).
Subtle and quiet feeling, but the quiet before the storm. Emotionally brutal, sometimes breathtakingly so. Really, really good.
In Concert: Over the Rhine
This is the second time I’ve gone to Over the Rhine’s “Holiday” concert. Always a good choice for this time of year. Great blues-y laidback sounds. Sometimes contemplative, sometimes sassy and upbeat. Great new instrumental piece dedicated to Charles Schulz (in the Vince Guaraldi tradition).
In Concert: Griffin House
I’ve mentioned Griffin House a few times in the past (here or here), so I was psyched to find he was opening for Over the Rhine the other night.
Better than I could have possibly imagined. A little less twangy in person than some of the stuff on the albums: more “songwriter” or folk-pop than country. Gorgeous sounds, great lyrics accompanied by an adorable smirk on the funny ones, nice stage presence. Cool sense of family and history and heartache and comfort. Really, really enjoyable.
And did I mention he’s H-O-T, hot. Yum.
p.s. yes I did run into him in the lobby and yes I did touch his arm and tell him he was lucky he played my favorite song as his encore or I would have… “Killed me?” he said. “Gone out of my mind!” I replied. 😉
Big Screen: Dan in Real Life
Somewhat predictable, occasionally contrived. Not an award winner or must-see. But enjoyable. And very, very sweet. Nice to see Steve Carrell dialed down for the occasion.
Big Screen: Margot at the Wedding.
HATED it. Yes. Hated. Thought it was one of the worst movies I’ve seen this year. Badly, badly written. Hard to judge whether the directing and acting were good or not / when the basis of the movie is that bad, the other things don’t even seem to matter.
The “funny” parts were awkward and misplaced; the scenes with the neighbors seemed to belong to some other movie, perhaps a Stephen King-type horror flick; there wasn’t really a single character (except perhaps the teenage boy) who had normal human reactions to anything that happened. And frankly, I could not even find one person I cared about, was interested in, or didn’t think was a moron. There were many times in this movie, during arguments between various characters, where one person would be yelling at the other “But you’re so smart! You’re so intelligent!” I didn’t see a single iota of evidence of that.
Tracy yelled out “Give me a break!” at one point; and we could hear people muttering “wow, so bad, so bad” as we left the theater. Since Tracy and I have rarely agreed on movies in the past month, I was surprised to find we both hated it equally. Michelle, on the other hand, seemed to like it. It cracked me up to read her comment: I find myself still thinking about this movie days after I saw it, and that’s something; because until the moment I read that, I had completely wiped this movie out of my mind. (And then I read her post and thought “OH FUCKING HELL I’ll actually have to think about it long enough to write it up. Yuck!”)
Hated it.
Big Screen: I’m Not There
A very original/unusual take on the biopic. The many past and possible lives of Bob Dylan, were he a few (five? can’t remember exactly) different people. Some of it was very entertaining and well done, other bits I could have done without. Similar to, say, Being John Malkovich, you’re either going to be able to go with it or you’re not.
Thought Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger and Christian Bale were all excellent. Blanchett and Bales’s sections were some of the most factually-based bits; there were moments in Blanchett’s that were straight out of filmed Dylan interviews I’ve even seen. (Michelle Williams’ bit part was really, really nicely done and Charlotte Gainsbourg was excellent as well.) But they could have left out the entire Richard Gere segment and I would have been fine with that (except for missing a great cover) – that imagined life just did nothing for me. More of a fairytale aspect going on there. And I didn’t find the segment with the little boy that engaging either.
Enjoyed the music, enjoyed a lot of it. Didn’t love it. But certainly worth seeing. Not going to see many things like it.
Concert review deleted, simile saved.
It was like watching a movie that was 100% special effects and 0% plot.
Just a random piece o’ writin’ I liked having been the one to write.