Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Finished reading The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney yesterday

I really enjoyed this book। It was mysterious; historical; dealt with issues of sexuality, race, and gender and all without taking itself too seriously. In the middle of the Canadian backwoods of 1867, Mrs. Ross is living a normal life, trying to please her husband and 17-year-old son. However when she finds the body of a local trapper, her hometown comes to life as they and members of the Hudson Bay company attempt to find the killer. Mrs. Ross has bigger problems though. Her young son, Francis, has disappeared and is now under suspicion of murder. A lovely historical element to the book is the small piece of bone with indiscernible markings which may prove that Native Americans may have at one time had a written language.

http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1880389

New Camera Obscura album out today!

The new Camera Obscura album, My Maudlin Career, comes out today. I’ve already been listening to it and it’s great. Tracyanne is at her sweetest and saddest. No, there are no smash hits along the lines of Lloyd or Let’s Get Out of this Country but maybe I will not get sick of these songs from over-listening then. Some of my favorites so far are: “You Told a Lie”, “The Sweetest Thing”, and “Honey in the Sun.”

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Everybody wants to be John Hughes these days

Last night I saw Adventureland This is the story of a college grad who is about to go to Europe and then grad school at Colombia…until his dad takes a pay cut and he must get a summer job in his home town, rather than touring ancient cities and ruins with his roommate। Since this spoiled intellectual has never had a real job before, he’s only qualified to work at Adventureland। Here he meets a handful of quirky and doomed characters। He starts dating Em (Kristen Stewart) but she has some things going and well...I don’t want to give it away।

The movie has a nice theme-park-in-the-80’s feel and a few hilarious lines, mostly delivered from Martin Starr। Overall, I’d say it was okay though। Being that Bill Heder and Kristin Wiig were in it, I assumed it was going to be more of a comedy। I wonder if they cut out some of Kristin Wiig’s part because she mostly just stood in the background next to Bill Heder। She did have one really funny part though that was thrown in there।

I think I spent the whole movie trying to imagine it was really 1987। It’s possible that short of having a 6-year-old Kerry go on one of the rides, they weren’t going to convince me। Even though The Wedding Singer was so over-the-top I feel like it was more convincing, maybe because the 80’s were over-the-top too। Or maybe it was because young people today look a lot like young people in the 80’s so they partly left them the way they are। They did a really good job with the clothes which were very bright; pants were very high। They got the hairstyles right but they could have been fluffier and more out of control। Also, Ryan Reynolds didn’t really fit in with his beef-cake-iness। I liked Kristen Stewart though and believed her as the troubled/edgy college student। Let’s do a comparison, shall we?

Anthony Michael Hall from Sixteen Candles vs। Jesse Eisenberg and Martin Starr

AH

  1. Hair is higher Notice,
  2. not everyone in the 80’s actually wore ringer t-shirts। AH went with the loose button-down alternative, ala Tom Cruise।
  3. Total skinny nerd, definitely doesn’t work out
  4. Not intellectual, just bad with girls
  5. And…for some reason, in real 80’s movies the nerds had Kevin Bacon from footloose kind of confidence


JE and MS

Hair is flat and in place, more 70’s

Wearing everyone’s fav 80’s throw back t-shirt

Even for skinny guys, they look pretty fit to me!
Intellectual and get with girls
Not confident…These guy are starting to sound more like studs: smooth hair, buff, cool shirts, smart, and modest! What more could Em want in a man?

एडिटिंग इस वेइर्द सॉरी इ'ल फिक्स थिस लेटर

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Same-sex Marriage Victories

From NYT.com: Gay Rights Groups Celebrate Victories in Marriage Push
I was caught by this statement but people do actually feel this way: ““It’s a bad day for the country,” said Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, a group established to fight same-sex marriage. “There is a palpable sense that something has changed and people need to get active.””
I hope he is right and that something has changed.
“Polls suggest that Americans remain divided on the issue. A CBS News poll last week found that while 6 out of 10 Americans think some form of legal recognition is appropriate for same-sex couples, only a third think those couples should be allowed to marry.”

Thursday, April 2, 2009

NEWS FLASH!

if you haven't already heard, i got locked inside my apartment building today. the door just wouldn't open. it was scary and weird. i had to climb down the fire escape just to get out and go to work and was late because of it. you'll be glad to know that the door knob has since been fixed.

also, last night MTV played "docudrama" (whatever the hell that is) about the life of pedro from the san francisco real world. it was so bad! basically, it was actors re-enacting the real world. the acting was terrible and puck wasn't even that dirty or gross. it looked like they just found some blonde frat boy and put him in weird outfits and told him to pick his nose and be mean to pedro. even though this was an extremely silly and strange thing for MTV to put their time and money into and then play during lost (it was 2 hours and the second hour was at the same time as the new lost episode), it was sad and kind of moving. pedro was a good guy and the first real-worlder to have a message and attempt to make the show less vapid so it's nice that they are trying to remind people of him and his story. i'm sure it's part of their whole GYT campaign. it's sort of random but i guess pedro is a connection between them (MTV) and AIDS. i don't know if there are many others. they used to play that real sex series, where they would talk to random people about their sex lives and how having unprotected sex made their lives more difficult by leading to diseases and unplanned babies. they should play those. it was cool that they used to care and do stuff like that and it would also be an awesome blast back to the 90's. 

let's now go back to before the "docudrama." in yet another attempt to improve the quality of my life, i got an expensive haircut yesterday. now i've done this before and was unhappy with the result but this particular stylist was highly recommended to me so i took a chance. i must say, i'm very very happy with the results and hope to show off my new do very soon.

goodnight!