Gaudete Christus/ Baruch ata Adonai...et al
I keep seeing references to something called "Festivus" in greeting cards, decorations, and lapel pins...someone tell me what piece of pop culture this is? It doesn't have the ring of authenticity to it.
Amazingly, it's not only the first night of Hannukah tonight but Christmas Day, which doesn't happen very often. So to my Christian friends, Merry Christmas, and to my Jewish fr..wait. Brian? Mom? Happy Hannukah.
Shopping is mostly done, gave the gift of art (oil and canvas) to Nicole before seeing Munich...more on that later. I finally finished Murakami's Norwegian Wood, which I consider one of his better ones. Oddly enough, according to the afterward, in Japan it's considered one of his least interesting, due to the entirely mundane and straightforward nature of it. But after all the magical realism, mythology, and symbolism of his other works, it was refreshing to read something straightforward. Still working on Borges, Jonathan Lethem's Cartoons for Adults which is a collection of shorts...same guy who wrote Fortress of Solitude. Good stuff, varied and well written.
The latest issue of The Word magazine, (a UK monthly) has a piece on the new Dr Who series with Christopher Eccleston as the latest incarnation of the homeless Time Lord. I've downloaded a few episodes, and it's better than I thought it'd be. It's been updated a bit visually, thank God, but the premise and the tongue is still planted firmly in the cheek of the show's writers and producers. It's at heart still about humanity, not about spaceships and explosions. I don't know if the show is available in the US yet on DVD, but use a bitTorrrent server and pirate away.
Oh yes, I got a library card this week, as it appears that there is a small branch within walking distance of my apartment, further cementing Normal Heights as the premiere neighborhood in San Diego. I picked up the Golden Bough, which I am not going to want to return. It's an indepth and fascinating study of the world's mythology and folklegends, with an eye for the internal logic and structure behind many of the legends. Chapters range from discussions of the various Fire Festivals in Europe to the Disposal of Hair and Nail Trimmings in Indonesia. I predict much outright theft from it on my part in my writing.
Oh yes, Munich. Ill just say it was good, long, depressing, and the best spy/assasination thriller I've ever seen because it never lets the technical aspect get away from the people and the plot. Everything has a price, there are no MacGuffins here to overshadow the very high price of vengance, and the consequences of inaction. If I have a quibble with it, it's the drawn out - anti-climatic nature of the film that ends not with a bang but with a walk in the park as the camera pans out. But that's the storyteller in me trying to impose an Ending on a story that doesn't have one - read the Jerusalem Post, anything from MEMRI, or even (grunt) CNN. It's a black and bloody business, this business of statehood.
Oh yes, I'm also having another crack at the Narnia books (starting with the Magician's Nephew, as C.S. Lewis INTENDED). Last year this season I re-read Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising ceries, since that's one of the best YA series ever written. Pick them up if you haven't already.
Good Yule to Y'all-
Amazingly, it's not only the first night of Hannukah tonight but Christmas Day, which doesn't happen very often. So to my Christian friends, Merry Christmas, and to my Jewish fr..wait. Brian? Mom? Happy Hannukah.
Shopping is mostly done, gave the gift of art (oil and canvas) to Nicole before seeing Munich...more on that later. I finally finished Murakami's Norwegian Wood, which I consider one of his better ones. Oddly enough, according to the afterward, in Japan it's considered one of his least interesting, due to the entirely mundane and straightforward nature of it. But after all the magical realism, mythology, and symbolism of his other works, it was refreshing to read something straightforward. Still working on Borges, Jonathan Lethem's Cartoons for Adults which is a collection of shorts...same guy who wrote Fortress of Solitude. Good stuff, varied and well written.
The latest issue of The Word magazine, (a UK monthly) has a piece on the new Dr Who series with Christopher Eccleston as the latest incarnation of the homeless Time Lord. I've downloaded a few episodes, and it's better than I thought it'd be. It's been updated a bit visually, thank God, but the premise and the tongue is still planted firmly in the cheek of the show's writers and producers. It's at heart still about humanity, not about spaceships and explosions. I don't know if the show is available in the US yet on DVD, but use a bitTorrrent server and pirate away.
Oh yes, I got a library card this week, as it appears that there is a small branch within walking distance of my apartment, further cementing Normal Heights as the premiere neighborhood in San Diego. I picked up the Golden Bough, which I am not going to want to return. It's an indepth and fascinating study of the world's mythology and folklegends, with an eye for the internal logic and structure behind many of the legends. Chapters range from discussions of the various Fire Festivals in Europe to the Disposal of Hair and Nail Trimmings in Indonesia. I predict much outright theft from it on my part in my writing.
Oh yes, Munich. Ill just say it was good, long, depressing, and the best spy/assasination thriller I've ever seen because it never lets the technical aspect get away from the people and the plot. Everything has a price, there are no MacGuffins here to overshadow the very high price of vengance, and the consequences of inaction. If I have a quibble with it, it's the drawn out - anti-climatic nature of the film that ends not with a bang but with a walk in the park as the camera pans out. But that's the storyteller in me trying to impose an Ending on a story that doesn't have one - read the Jerusalem Post, anything from MEMRI, or even (grunt) CNN. It's a black and bloody business, this business of statehood.
Oh yes, I'm also having another crack at the Narnia books (starting with the Magician's Nephew, as C.S. Lewis INTENDED). Last year this season I re-read Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising ceries, since that's one of the best YA series ever written. Pick them up if you haven't already.
Good Yule to Y'all-
Festivus is apparently from an episode of Seinfeld. Talk about anticlimactic.
I'm intrigued by the Doctor Who series, but have never attempted to get into it... I may now. Eccleston was great in 28 Days Later.
Posted by
Hannah |
11:30 AM
Seinfeld? Never watched an episode of that all the way through. And here I was hoping it was somethng meaningful.
Dr Who is quite frankly, the bees knees. But start with the early stuff first.
Posted by
Aaron |
4:50 PM
*adds things to lists* :)
Posted by
annie |
7:45 PM