- My UPass.
- My health insurance.
Just turned $116.05 of change into real money!
Rejects were:
- A Canadian dime;
- a Canadian quarter; and
- a U.S. quarter that appears almost bronze due to some kind of rusty mould.
YAY free money for groceries! 🙂
Oh MY.
A stunningly lovely cover of one of my very very all-time favorite songs, Ryan Adams’ “Come Pick Me Up.” I never thought about how this song might work as a duet. It’s great.
(via Music vs Misery)
À la Nick Hornby, books in/books out for October.
Bought:
- Awkward and Definition, The High School Comic Chronicles of Ariel Schrag (GN)
- The Good Soldiers, by David Finkel
- Northlanders Vol 1: Sven The Returned, by Brian Wood
- Northlanders Vol 2: The Cross + The Hammer
Read:
- Y: Last Man–Unmanned, by Brian K. Vaughn (GN)
- The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick
- Wonderstruck, by Brian Selznick
- The Trouble with Thirteen, by Betty Miles (re-read)
- The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin (library)
- Ten Birds, by Cybele Young (library)
- Don’t You Know There’s a War On? by Avi (borrowed from classroom)
- The Good Soldiers, by David Finkel
- Where do you think you’re going, Christopher Columbus? by Jean Fritz (library)
- Jacob Have I Loved, by Katherine Patterson (library)
- Northlanders Vol 1: Sven The Returned, by Brian Wood
- Northlanders Vol 2: The Cross + The Hammer
- Educating Esme, Diary of a Teacher’s First Year, by Esme Raji Codell (library)
- Feed, by M.T. Anderson
- The Book of Three, by Lloyd Alexander
- The Demon Trapper’s Daughter, by Jana Oliver
- Life as We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer (borrowed from professor)
- The Ocean Between Us, by Susan Wiggs (borrowed from laundry room)
- Honeybee, by Naomi Shihab Nye
Lending Library
Allie Beckstrom 1-2-3 (Magic to the Bone, in the Blood, on the Storm): Anne
Graphic Novels: The Northlanders series by Brian Wood & Ryan Kelly.
Wow, where have these been all my life? Whipped through volumes 1 (Sven the Returned) and 2 (The Cross + the Hammer) yesterday and can’t wait to read more. The art is GORGEOUS, super dark and lush and green and red. The stories are great. The hero/anti-heroes are compelling and twisted and brave and hurt.
So.Good.
These are begging to be movies. (Curses.) But if they get Skarsgard to play Sven, I’d go. (Wrong coloring I know. But…)
Chicago Film Festival: Haunters
Korean mystery flick with a touch of magical realism. Really, really good! We loved it and the rest of the audience seemed to as well. Truly creepy and scary in some parts, completely farcical in others. Some really great casting choices/quirky characterizations. Completely original. 100% worth not getting home until after 1 a.m.
I’m sure it’s barely playing anywhere, if at all. But if it comes to your town, I’d call it a Can’t Miss.
Skarsgard on the Swedish sensibility / identity.
“I think it has to do with minimalism in terms of everything. There’s a lot going on under the surface. It’s something hidden. And that’s always interesting to me. You have to dig deeper. It’s like a duck — calm on the surface, but paddling like a motherfucker underneath.”
-A.Skars from this interview.
New! Tunes! Budget! Priced!
My two new favorite albums that I am listening to obsessively over and over and over again are:
- Tyler Lyle “The Golden Age & The Silver Girl” — available at Bandcamp for only $6! It’s poppy and fun and pretty and some of it’s super bouncy and it has lovely lyrics that of course sound completely nonsensical when taken apart from their songs and I listen to it every morning and dance at the bus stop and get psyched up for my day!
- Empty Orchestra “One More Time, All Together Now” — You may know that I know a few people in this band. well, guess what? They are STILL awesome even though I know them! And they make great music! And you can get it for FREE just by tweeting/twittering about it and helping spread the word about them. Srsly. They describe their music as a FISTFIGHT and it doesn’t really get any better than that: Our songs are fistfights of traditions and generations and genres and tempos and hope and doubt and death and punchlines.
There you go, two awesome music recommendations for the price of less than one. Don’t say I never gave you anything!!
À la Nick Hornby, books in/books out for September.
Bought:
- Trickster, ed. by Matt Dembicki (graphic collection)
- It Was the War of the Trenches, by Jacques Tardi (graphic novel)
- Choice Words, by Peter H. Johnston
- Stitches, by David Small (graphic novel)
- When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead
- Epileptic, by David B. (graphic novel)
- Ben’s Trumpet, by Rachel Isadora
- The Enemy, by Davide Cali & Serge Bloch
Read:
- Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest (YA)(iphone/kindle)
- Ship Breaker, by Paolo Bacigalupi (YA)
- Watchtower, by Elizabeth A. Lynn (re-read)
- The Dancers of Arun, by Elizabeth A. Lynn (re-read)
- The Northern Girl, by Elizabeth A. Lynn (re-read)
- Weed Flower, by Cynthia Kadohata
- The Enemy, by Davide Cali & Serge Bloch
- Maizon at Blue Hill, by Jacqueline Woodson
- Lockdown, by Walter Dean Myers
- Stitches, by David Small (graphic novel)
- The Getaway Car, a practical memoir about writing and life, by Ann Patchett (iphone/kindle)
- The Arrival, by Shaun Tan (graphic novel / wordless picture book)
- Fortunte’s Bones, by Marilyn Nelson (poetry)
- Okay for Now, by Gary Schmidt
- Trickster, ed. by Matt Dembicki (graphic collection)
Note: I did not include most of the picture books I read for my children’s and YA Lit class, although I did include fiction and graphic novels.