In which I infodump
Reconnections:
Went to see Grindhouse last night with someone I haven't seen in 8 years: my first girlfriend*, and the girl who I had a hopeless crush on throughout high school. I wasn't sure how it would work out, going into it, since all I had to go on regarding her personality/place in life were Facebook interests. Turns out she's cooler than I remember her (art history major, interested in aesthetic philosophy, into movies, etc), looks much the same, is generally very friendly and fun to be around. So, hooray for that. I need all the friends I can get up here.
Grindhouse was all kinds of awesome. A bit too much at times, but that kind of excess is kind of built into the structure of the thing, so it's not something you can really call out as a fault. Deathproof is easily my favorite of the two--much leaner, meaner, scarier and funnier. Plus, Kurt Russell + Rosario Dawson = <3 <3. Planet Terror is great too, though--more gonzo b-movie than true grindhouse pic, but it hits every single beat in the Zombie tradition, Rose McGowan is a badass, and there's enough ridiculous gore for even the most discriminating horror fan.
*This is debatable. I don't usually count her, but she mentioned yesterday that I was her 2nd boyfriend, so... ok. Depending on who you ask, our relationship lasted either 6 hours or a week. I'm willing to concede that the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, but I'm 99% certain it's better counted in hours than days.
Books:
I've been buying way too many, lately. It's getting to the point where I'm spending more time shopping for books than I am reading them, and that's sort of ridiculous. That said, I am doing my fair share of reading and it feels oh so good. Recent reads: Acts of Worship, 7 Stories by Yukio Mishima, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, and The Knight by Gene Wolfe. I'm currently working on Journey to the End of the Night by Celine and The Assistant by Bernard Malamud.
New buys:
All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy
No Country For Old Men, Cormac McCarthy
Nightfall, Isaac Asimov/Robert Silverberg
White Teeth, Smith
The Scientific American Book of Astronomy
Acts of Worship, Yukio Mishima
The Instance of the Fingerpost, Iain Pears
Naomi, Junichiro Tanizaki
Running in the Family, Michael Ondaatje
Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Fall, Albert Camus
Intruder in the Dust, William Faulkner
The Reivers, William Faulkner
Running Dog, Don DeLillo
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
Titus Alone, Mervyn Peake
Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl
Best SF of 1971, eds. Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss
Tales of the Dying Earth, Jack Vance
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Sijie
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
The Gulag Archipelago (vols. I & II), Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Granta #63: Beasts
Last weekend:
Mike Kerr came into town late Friday morning, at which point we headed to drinkin' island for a few hours. Had to cut that short, though, since I had to work in the morning. Mike came with, fell in love with the Emory library's philosophy section. Had to drag him away, at which point we hit my new favorite Thai place, the "package" store, the Goodwill (where a good few of the above books came from). Came back home and collected Rachel and Steve before heading out for the Decemberists show. As you probably know at this point, I'm not the world's biggest Decemberists fan ("pirate rock," etc etc). I was therefore pretty stunned at how thoroughly I loved their live show. Tight as hell. Loud. Meloy's voice (one of the sticking points for me on record) was really powerful. Most surprising of all, they're an honest to god rock band. Who knew? They maybe spent a little too much time on the musical theater aspect of the performance, but that's what a large part of their hardline fanbase loves them for, so I suppose they can't really be blamed for indulging. I'll probably end up talking about this at more length on Girlpants
Came home and hit the sheets in short order, since we were planning to roll out to Mike's timeshare in Helen, Georgia early Saturday. Helen is a little north Georgia mountain town (like... one stoplight) that fashions itself as a Swiss/German alpine village. Apparently, sometime in the 60s the town was dying--local industry moved away, lack of jobs, etc etc. So the residents had a town meeting (over lunch!) and decided that the only way to save the town was to renovate it into some kind of tourist trap. One of the guys at the meeting contacted a friend who had spent some time in Germany and the rest you can probably put together. The result? Well, it's pretty much just strip malls and fast food joints with that weird brown crosshatching that stereotypical German buildings have. Every street is named "______ Strasse." Think... "Chatahoochee Strasse." They all have those pointy roofs. They have an Oktoberfest. All of the restaurants serve German macrobrews. It's pretty grody.
Despite the surroundings, we managed to have a pretty awesome time. This is down to precisely two things: 1) hiking, which we did a bunch of (~10mi) in the day or so we were there, and 2) bbq, which we ate twice in the same period. The hiking was mostly of the gently rolling but occasionally mildly strenuous sort, with the notable exception of the several hundred foot, nearly sheer vertical climb at the end of the longer trail. I almost fell off a mountain at least three or four times. We all dangled our legs off a 400ft cliff. We were out-climbed by a pair of 8 year old girls and their dog. Good times. The bbq was of the heavily smoked, falling-off-the-bone variety. We got it for dinner after the first hike and made sure we hiked enough the next day to warrant rewarding ourselves with it again for lunch. The old lady working behind the counter seemed pleased as punch that we were back again in under 24 hours.
Now I suppose I ought to do some work since I'm, you know, at work. L8r.
Went to see Grindhouse last night with someone I haven't seen in 8 years: my first girlfriend*, and the girl who I had a hopeless crush on throughout high school. I wasn't sure how it would work out, going into it, since all I had to go on regarding her personality/place in life were Facebook interests. Turns out she's cooler than I remember her (art history major, interested in aesthetic philosophy, into movies, etc), looks much the same, is generally very friendly and fun to be around. So, hooray for that. I need all the friends I can get up here.
Grindhouse was all kinds of awesome. A bit too much at times, but that kind of excess is kind of built into the structure of the thing, so it's not something you can really call out as a fault. Deathproof is easily my favorite of the two--much leaner, meaner, scarier and funnier. Plus, Kurt Russell + Rosario Dawson = <3 <3. Planet Terror is great too, though--more gonzo b-movie than true grindhouse pic, but it hits every single beat in the Zombie tradition, Rose McGowan is a badass, and there's enough ridiculous gore for even the most discriminating horror fan.
*This is debatable. I don't usually count her, but she mentioned yesterday that I was her 2nd boyfriend, so... ok. Depending on who you ask, our relationship lasted either 6 hours or a week. I'm willing to concede that the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, but I'm 99% certain it's better counted in hours than days.
Books:
I've been buying way too many, lately. It's getting to the point where I'm spending more time shopping for books than I am reading them, and that's sort of ridiculous. That said, I am doing my fair share of reading and it feels oh so good. Recent reads: Acts of Worship, 7 Stories by Yukio Mishima, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, and The Knight by Gene Wolfe. I'm currently working on Journey to the End of the Night by Celine and The Assistant by Bernard Malamud.
New buys:
All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy
No Country For Old Men, Cormac McCarthy
Nightfall, Isaac Asimov/Robert Silverberg
White Teeth, Smith
The Scientific American Book of Astronomy
Acts of Worship, Yukio Mishima
The Instance of the Fingerpost, Iain Pears
Naomi, Junichiro Tanizaki
Running in the Family, Michael Ondaatje
Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Fall, Albert Camus
Intruder in the Dust, William Faulkner
The Reivers, William Faulkner
Running Dog, Don DeLillo
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
Titus Alone, Mervyn Peake
Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl
Best SF of 1971, eds. Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss
Tales of the Dying Earth, Jack Vance
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Sijie
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
The Gulag Archipelago (vols. I & II), Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Granta #63: Beasts
Last weekend:
Mike Kerr came into town late Friday morning, at which point we headed to drinkin' island for a few hours. Had to cut that short, though, since I had to work in the morning. Mike came with, fell in love with the Emory library's philosophy section. Had to drag him away, at which point we hit my new favorite Thai place, the "package" store, the Goodwill (where a good few of the above books came from). Came back home and collected Rachel and Steve before heading out for the Decemberists show. As you probably know at this point, I'm not the world's biggest Decemberists fan ("pirate rock," etc etc). I was therefore pretty stunned at how thoroughly I loved their live show. Tight as hell. Loud. Meloy's voice (one of the sticking points for me on record) was really powerful. Most surprising of all, they're an honest to god rock band. Who knew? They maybe spent a little too much time on the musical theater aspect of the performance, but that's what a large part of their hardline fanbase loves them for, so I suppose they can't really be blamed for indulging. I'll probably end up talking about this at more length on Girlpants
Came home and hit the sheets in short order, since we were planning to roll out to Mike's timeshare in Helen, Georgia early Saturday. Helen is a little north Georgia mountain town (like... one stoplight) that fashions itself as a Swiss/German alpine village. Apparently, sometime in the 60s the town was dying--local industry moved away, lack of jobs, etc etc. So the residents had a town meeting (over lunch!) and decided that the only way to save the town was to renovate it into some kind of tourist trap. One of the guys at the meeting contacted a friend who had spent some time in Germany and the rest you can probably put together. The result? Well, it's pretty much just strip malls and fast food joints with that weird brown crosshatching that stereotypical German buildings have. Every street is named "______ Strasse." Think... "Chatahoochee Strasse." They all have those pointy roofs. They have an Oktoberfest. All of the restaurants serve German macrobrews. It's pretty grody.
Despite the surroundings, we managed to have a pretty awesome time. This is down to precisely two things: 1) hiking, which we did a bunch of (~10mi) in the day or so we were there, and 2) bbq, which we ate twice in the same period. The hiking was mostly of the gently rolling but occasionally mildly strenuous sort, with the notable exception of the several hundred foot, nearly sheer vertical climb at the end of the longer trail. I almost fell off a mountain at least three or four times. We all dangled our legs off a 400ft cliff. We were out-climbed by a pair of 8 year old girls and their dog. Good times. The bbq was of the heavily smoked, falling-off-the-bone variety. We got it for dinner after the first hike and made sure we hiked enough the next day to warrant rewarding ourselves with it again for lunch. The old lady working behind the counter seemed pleased as punch that we were back again in under 24 hours.
Now I suppose I ought to do some work since I'm, you know, at work. L8r.