Thanks, readers, for giving me the incentive to keep this blog going for the couple years!
Unfortunately, I will be ending this blog for the time being... Sad, I know.
The fam is moving to SE Texas for the wife's work, and it will take a few months to settle in, acquaint ourselves. Once my son is in school and everything is humming along, I'll start this blog back up or give all you faithful friends and readers the link to a new blog.
Farewell!
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Monday, July 15, 2013
Penultimate Post?
Well, it's Monday the 15th. We had a very nice weekend with my parents in Chattanooga, a city I had never been to (only driven through) and knew very little about. I really liked it! I thought the city's downtown's district was great, the waterfront nice, and the zoo was small but not crowded and nicely designed.
More importantly, we now have our dog Daisy back! (Although she is limping... Have to keep an eye on that.)
What else happened this weekend? The death of Cory Monteith from Glee. Sad. George Zimmerman going free? Absurd.
Tonight, Julia and I are going to watch Dark Skies, the 2013 sci-fi thriller with Keri Russell and Josh Hamilton. Hope it's creepy.
Not really sure what else to write about.... I'm kind of bored, maybe even over this blog. I appreciate those of you who read it, but I don't really know what else to do with it...
Tomorrow, I'll either be rejuvenated and try to really get this thing going again, with some new features and columns, or I'll just nix it for good. We'll see...
More importantly, we now have our dog Daisy back! (Although she is limping... Have to keep an eye on that.)
What else happened this weekend? The death of Cory Monteith from Glee. Sad. George Zimmerman going free? Absurd.
Tonight, Julia and I are going to watch Dark Skies, the 2013 sci-fi thriller with Keri Russell and Josh Hamilton. Hope it's creepy.
Not really sure what else to write about.... I'm kind of bored, maybe even over this blog. I appreciate those of you who read it, but I don't really know what else to do with it...
Tomorrow, I'll either be rejuvenated and try to really get this thing going again, with some new features and columns, or I'll just nix it for good. We'll see...
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Yawn
Nothing much has been going on around here - just taking Clive to the vet, wrapping up things around town, etc.
We go to get Daisy on Saturday. Can't wait! Nor can I believe it'll be almost two months since I've last seen her!
Julia and I will try out new summer shows tonight - the FX drama The Bridge, starring Diane Kruger and Demian Bechir, which looks like it's going to be a layered border drama/mystery ala The Killing; also, NBC's Camp, with Rachel Griffiths, which looks like a breezy throwaway show about a summer camp.
I started a new book, James Clavell's 1981 blockbuster Noble House, which, if I finish, will be the longest novel I have ever read - the paperback copy has 1370 pages.
I've also been addicted to Smarthistory.org lately too, trying to expand my knowledge of art history.
I know, I know, kind of a boring post. But it's something...
We go to get Daisy on Saturday. Can't wait! Nor can I believe it'll be almost two months since I've last seen her!
Julia and I will try out new summer shows tonight - the FX drama The Bridge, starring Diane Kruger and Demian Bechir, which looks like it's going to be a layered border drama/mystery ala The Killing; also, NBC's Camp, with Rachel Griffiths, which looks like a breezy throwaway show about a summer camp.
I started a new book, James Clavell's 1981 blockbuster Noble House, which, if I finish, will be the longest novel I have ever read - the paperback copy has 1370 pages.
I've also been addicted to Smarthistory.org lately too, trying to expand my knowledge of art history.
I know, I know, kind of a boring post. But it's something...
Monday, July 8, 2013
Thoughts
Well, well, the weeks until Moving Day are dwindling away, aren't they? 23 more days in Georgia and then it's Texas, here we come!
This weekend, we kept it simple and low-key and watched movies - Mama and This is 40 among them. Mama wasn't bad until the last third, when it dissolved into too much whirling-CGI silliness. This is 40 was a loose, overlong blast, with plenty of funny bits and some scathing, possibly autobiographical moments that were easy to relate to.
This week, our goal is to start crossing things off our list of Things to Do Before We Leave: cancel cable services, take the pets to the vet, etc. Oh, yeah, and finishing the Jeffrey Archer novels we are reading would be nice, too: Julia's reading Paths of Glory (about George Mallory, the ill-fated Everest climber), while I've started his recent, Follett-esque saga that kickstarts with Only Time Will Tell.
We went up to 2nd and Charles, the used bookstore in Augusta, this weekend and bought 26 mostly longish fiction titles - John Jakes, Dan Simmons, Archer, James Clavell, etc. Can't wait to start reading them.
Finally, let's briefly mention the recent copy of Entertainment Weekly list of the Greatest Ever:
Movies: It's simply too easy and too unoriginal to call Citizen Kane the best movie ever. And what is The Sound of Music doing on this list? Only about 12 or 13 foreign films - are you kidding me? World cinema has only accounted for less than a sixth of cinema's greatness? Not much from the last 20-25 years, either: Rushmore (overrated), Titanic, All About My Mother, Toy Story, There Will Be Blood, Pulp Fiction, etc. The comedies on the list were too predictable, too - the films that are "supposed" to be there. Two Woody Allen movies in the top 40? Where's Raging Bull? Where's The Godfather Part II? I could go on about the foreign directors neglected, but what about Groundhog Day, Unforgiven, L.A. Confidential, Rio Bravo, etc?
Music: Not too m any qualms here, but there is far more hip-hop than I would have on my own list. It's funny, because back when I, you know, owned music, I had most of these albums. Revolver probably is the greatest album ever, people - inventive and groundbreaking, sure, but such an eclectic assemblage of great songs - my favorite Beatles song, "Eleanor Rigby," the great ballad "Here, There, and Everywhere," the sublimely goofy "Yellow Submarine," the chugging, angry "Taxman," etc. Even the artists I don't particularly like or I haven't listened to in a long time on here deserve to be on the list. And kudos to EW for including my favorite soundtrack of all time - The Harder They Come, the great reggae accompaniment to a little-seen (and certainly not by me - I don't even know what it's about) Jamaican film of 1973.
Books: Can't argue with too many of the books that were included that I have read (39, to be exact), but I am mystified by what isn't on the list: 1984, Brave New World, Graham Greene or Evelyn Waugh, Ulysses, The Grapes of Wrath (oh, come on!), Don Quixote, Revolutionary Road, Pillars of the Earth, The Good Earth, to name but a few no-shows. Never read Anna Karenina, their top pick, but I hear it's not bad.
TV: Look, I really liked The Wire - superb on every level - but by the end of the series, I was just tired of the unrelenting bleakness of its vision of Baltimore. I never got tired of The Sopranos, so that would be my top pick, but that's to-may-to, to-mah-to. Who cares? I don't watch any shows that were on before I was born, but I wasn't sure why Friday Night Lights was below Gilmore Girls, do you? And no Dexter? That's just cruel.
This weekend, we kept it simple and low-key and watched movies - Mama and This is 40 among them. Mama wasn't bad until the last third, when it dissolved into too much whirling-CGI silliness. This is 40 was a loose, overlong blast, with plenty of funny bits and some scathing, possibly autobiographical moments that were easy to relate to.
This week, our goal is to start crossing things off our list of Things to Do Before We Leave: cancel cable services, take the pets to the vet, etc. Oh, yeah, and finishing the Jeffrey Archer novels we are reading would be nice, too: Julia's reading Paths of Glory (about George Mallory, the ill-fated Everest climber), while I've started his recent, Follett-esque saga that kickstarts with Only Time Will Tell.
We went up to 2nd and Charles, the used bookstore in Augusta, this weekend and bought 26 mostly longish fiction titles - John Jakes, Dan Simmons, Archer, James Clavell, etc. Can't wait to start reading them.
Finally, let's briefly mention the recent copy of Entertainment Weekly list of the Greatest Ever:
Movies: It's simply too easy and too unoriginal to call Citizen Kane the best movie ever. And what is The Sound of Music doing on this list? Only about 12 or 13 foreign films - are you kidding me? World cinema has only accounted for less than a sixth of cinema's greatness? Not much from the last 20-25 years, either: Rushmore (overrated), Titanic, All About My Mother, Toy Story, There Will Be Blood, Pulp Fiction, etc. The comedies on the list were too predictable, too - the films that are "supposed" to be there. Two Woody Allen movies in the top 40? Where's Raging Bull? Where's The Godfather Part II? I could go on about the foreign directors neglected, but what about Groundhog Day, Unforgiven, L.A. Confidential, Rio Bravo, etc?
Music: Not too m any qualms here, but there is far more hip-hop than I would have on my own list. It's funny, because back when I, you know, owned music, I had most of these albums. Revolver probably is the greatest album ever, people - inventive and groundbreaking, sure, but such an eclectic assemblage of great songs - my favorite Beatles song, "Eleanor Rigby," the great ballad "Here, There, and Everywhere," the sublimely goofy "Yellow Submarine," the chugging, angry "Taxman," etc. Even the artists I don't particularly like or I haven't listened to in a long time on here deserve to be on the list. And kudos to EW for including my favorite soundtrack of all time - The Harder They Come, the great reggae accompaniment to a little-seen (and certainly not by me - I don't even know what it's about) Jamaican film of 1973.
Books: Can't argue with too many of the books that were included that I have read (39, to be exact), but I am mystified by what isn't on the list: 1984, Brave New World, Graham Greene or Evelyn Waugh, Ulysses, The Grapes of Wrath (oh, come on!), Don Quixote, Revolutionary Road, Pillars of the Earth, The Good Earth, to name but a few no-shows. Never read Anna Karenina, their top pick, but I hear it's not bad.
TV: Look, I really liked The Wire - superb on every level - but by the end of the series, I was just tired of the unrelenting bleakness of its vision of Baltimore. I never got tired of The Sopranos, so that would be my top pick, but that's to-may-to, to-mah-to. Who cares? I don't watch any shows that were on before I was born, but I wasn't sure why Friday Night Lights was below Gilmore Girls, do you? And no Dexter? That's just cruel.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
July 3rd
 |
| Fra Bartolomeo's portrait of the crazed monk Savonarola (who plays a significant part in The Agony and the Ecstasy), as seen in Florence's San Marco Museum, 1498. |
It's 4th of July weekend, and all I really wanna do is sit around and watch TV, read Ben Fountain's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, and listen to music and dance with Gabriel. All this rain!
I read nine books while I was in Italy, did I mention that?
- Tess Gerritsen's The Surgeon, the first entry in the Rizzoli & Isles series, a solid outing - though Isles isn't in it.
- Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, an overlooked, underread novel involving a certain painting in the Louvre. Fun stuff, though undeniably silly. But, yes, I do want to read Brown's Inferno.
- Pat Barker's Regeneration (1991), the first in her acclaimed WWI trilogy. Strong stuff. A canny, probing interweaving of history and fiction, this book centers on the real-life psychiatrist Dr. William Rivers and his relationship with other soldiers home from the front, including vocal anti-war poet Sigfried Sassoon.
- Irving Stone's last biographical novel, 1985's Depths of Glory, which charts the life - in minute detail - of Camille Pissarro. You definitely learn a lot when you read a Stone book, I'll say that much. More non-fiction than fiction, the book is a tribute to Stone's fanatical research skills. As a novel, it's clunky, of course, but, hey, if you want to learn about everything Impressionism...
- Laura Lippman's first Tess Monaghan mystery, 1997's Baltimore Blues, a well-written, engaging novel that lets a reader unfamiliar with the well-regarded author bask in her knowledge of all things Baltimore.
- Simon Kernick's Relentless (2007), a fast-paced but forgettably dumb thriller about a meek British man hunted by thugs.
- Jeffrey Archer's 1979 blockbuster Kane & Abel, one of my favorite books of the year and the main reason I'm now an Archer fan for life. It's an epic that charts the collision course set upon by two men born on the same day, of vastly differently environments and circumstances. Fun, soapy, incapable of being set aside. If you like Ken Follett, you'll like Archer.
- Ruth Rendell wrote as Barbara Vine for the first time in 1986's stunning A Dark-Adapted Eye, a stew of hothouse Vine themes: adultery, murder, troubled pasts. Impeccable prose, convoluted backstories, remorseless characters, that cold, cold tone that has been described as "an alien touch in the dark."
- Harlan Coben's No Second Chance (2003), my favorite novel by him outside of Tell No One. An action-packed grabber about a man whose wife is killed and daughter abducted, it's a page-turner, a mystery that isn't back-heavy with twists, which Coben tends to employ with overkill. This one's good from start to finish.
Ah, Italy. Thanks for the reading...
Italy for me in 100 words? Hills, David, Pozzo, brie and crackers, Trevi Fountain, Conad, students, Giotto, Angelico, Hart of Dixie, croissants, air drying, Irving Stone, cats, Botticelli, ATMs, Duccio, calf muscles, small glasses, buttered noodles, Daft Punk, views, Pienza, Martini, San Popolo, fleece, sorted trash, Il Sasso (don't ask), TUCs (again... don't ask), Auto Grille, waiting, bathroom searches, tuna, shower seats, Caravaggio, metro strike, Fortress, De Chirico, Signorelli, first course, stroller, Saint Francis, Camposanto, Michelangelo, forced bonding, alcohol, gelato, butt bleeding, Cinque Terre, salt tax, Pisano, Bernini, yogurt, Pink's "Try," sweat, late busses, Piazza Grande, duomos, Cortona, chess, Yahtzee, pizza, Sistine, "I'm hot," cups, Bagno, Fanta, Raphael, Maestas, baptisteries, chocolate.
Bad reviews for the new Lone Ranger movie, with Johnny Depp apparently trotting out his Jack Sparrow-schtick for that franchise's director Gore Verbinski. It's really long, too - 2 hours and a 20 minutes - for nostalgic escapist summer "fun." But, really: Who is the audience for this thing? Who under the age of, say, 50, remembers - let alone, likes - anything about the Lone Ranger?
Image courtesy of:
http://www.friendsofart.net/static/images/art1/fra-bartolomeo-portrait-of-girolamo-savonarola.jpg
Monday, July 1, 2013
Catching Up
Well, it's the first of the month, the start of our last here in Statesboro. Julia is hard at work on her dissertation, her goal being to defend it in November, and be Dr. Fischer by Christmas.
Gabriel is off summer school this week. Next week is his last week.
It'll be a month of waiting and packing, selling off some of the furniture we're not taking with us.
Daisy? Well, she's still in Cincinnati, having a blast. We'll have her back in less than two weeks.
What else? Well, the new Entertainment Weekly is something I need to pick up. It's their 10 Best of Everything list: greatest movies, plays, books, music, TV shows, musicals, etc. of all time.
Tonight, Julia and I will watch The Words again, that fine literary mystery with Bradley Cooper and Zoe Saldana that came out last fall.
We have been watching the sixth season of Mad Men together and enjoying it. Don is still being a cad, making a mockery of his marriage to nice Megan Draper, and there have been interesting storylines about Pete's up-to-his-eyeballs frustration with his addle-brained mother, the ego-laden tension between Don and his new partners, etc. Nothing will ever top the first couple of seasons of Mad Men but the show is consistently excellent.
The final season of Dexter started last night on Showtime. When we move, we'll make sure we get Showtime, so that we are able to catch the show mid-season and catch up on what we missed.
The Heat ruled the box office this weekend. No surprise there - Sandra Bullock and, yes, Melissa McCarthy are B.O. gold.
Having (finally) finished Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy this morning, I started searching Goodreads for a good list of long books I want to tackle sometime in the near future. Here's what I came up with :
- Hawaii (James Michener)
- Shogun (James Clavell)
- Proust's Remembrance of Things Past - John Jakes' North and South trilogy
- Of Human Bondage (W. Somerset Maugham)
- Whistle (James Jones)
- Sarum (Edward Rutherford)
- As the Crow Flies (Jeffrey Archer)
Gabriel is off summer school this week. Next week is his last week.
It'll be a month of waiting and packing, selling off some of the furniture we're not taking with us.
Daisy? Well, she's still in Cincinnati, having a blast. We'll have her back in less than two weeks.
What else? Well, the new Entertainment Weekly is something I need to pick up. It's their 10 Best of Everything list: greatest movies, plays, books, music, TV shows, musicals, etc. of all time.
Tonight, Julia and I will watch The Words again, that fine literary mystery with Bradley Cooper and Zoe Saldana that came out last fall.
We have been watching the sixth season of Mad Men together and enjoying it. Don is still being a cad, making a mockery of his marriage to nice Megan Draper, and there have been interesting storylines about Pete's up-to-his-eyeballs frustration with his addle-brained mother, the ego-laden tension between Don and his new partners, etc. Nothing will ever top the first couple of seasons of Mad Men but the show is consistently excellent.
The final season of Dexter started last night on Showtime. When we move, we'll make sure we get Showtime, so that we are able to catch the show mid-season and catch up on what we missed.
The Heat ruled the box office this weekend. No surprise there - Sandra Bullock and, yes, Melissa McCarthy are B.O. gold.
Having (finally) finished Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy this morning, I started searching Goodreads for a good list of long books I want to tackle sometime in the near future. Here's what I came up with :
- Hawaii (James Michener)
- Shogun (James Clavell)
- Proust's Remembrance of Things Past - John Jakes' North and South trilogy
- Of Human Bondage (W. Somerset Maugham)
- Whistle (James Jones)
- Sarum (Edward Rutherford)
- As the Crow Flies (Jeffrey Archer)
Friday, June 28, 2013
What's Out
Hey, hey, it's the weekend here in Shitsboro and we're looking for something to do. Any suggestions?
Didn't think so. Since you've got nothing and I've got nothing, we might as well catch up on movies.
I've been completely out of touch for the last six weeks or so. I don't know what's out, what's getting good reviews, what's doing well at the box office.
On the planes from Atlanta to Frankfurt and back, I was able to watch 5 movies:
- Parker, a generic-and-then-some actioner starring Jason Statham, with Jennifer Lopez the only thing worth a damn in it
- Identity Thief, the very funny box office hit with Jason Bateman's incomparable straight-guy act stealing the show from Melissa McCarthy
- The Last Stand, a surprisingly sturdy and well-made comeback for Arnold Schwarzenegger as a border cop in a small town that finds itself in some Rio Bravo-like trouble
- Jack Reacher, one of the most forgettable films Tom Cruise has ever been a part of; dumb, dumb, dumb
- Stand-Up Guys, a decent vehicle for Al Pacino and Christopher Walken (refreshingly vulnerable) as a couple of old criminals; Alan Arkin's in it too.
But what has been out at the theaters the last month or so? According to Entertainment Weekly, this is what I've missed:
(I've categorized the movies into what I want to see and what I don't)
Looks Good
Before Midnight - the best-reviewed American movie of the year so far (along with Mud), it's the final entry in an unforgettable trilogy. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy are now married and living in France with kids. That's all I want to say or ever read about. For intelligent moviegoers, the Before films are priceless and unforgettable.
Black Rock - a tough, nervy actioner about three women (including Lake Bell and Kate Bosworth) who find themselves stuck on a remote Maine island with some creepy, hyper-sexual guys. Preview looks good.
The Hangover III - all right, one more time won''t kill me...
World War Z - based off Max Brooks' best-selling humor book, this is anything but a comedy. Yes, it's blood-thirsty zombies run amok in the future, with Brad Pitt as a humanity's last chance. I like our odds.
Now You See Me - A group of Las Vegas magicians (Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, and Woody Harrelson) pull up on-stage bank robberies that confound an FBI agent (Mark Ruffalo). Looks like it might be a lot of visual, convoluted fun - the cast includes the enchanting French actress Melanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds), Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Common.
I'll Pass
I'm sorry, but despite Man of Steel's solid reviews, I think I'm just done with Superman. Though Michael Shannon as the villain, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, and Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as the Clark Kent's parents all make tempting offers.
Fast & Furious 6 is about five too many of those movies for my taste.
After Earth, the big-budgeted sci-fi movie directed by M. Night Shyamalan and starring Will and Jaden Smith, looks awful. Critics thought it was awful too.
The Internship is a comedy that re-teams Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson as a pair of aging failures who compete with a bunch of brilliant college students for an internship at Google. Blah.
This is the End is a loose, self-referential movie about a group of Hollywood actors (Jonah Hill, James Franco, etc, all playing themselves) whose wild night of partying is ruined when... a catastrophe hits L.A. Got great reviews - critics say it's funny as hell and unpredictable. Okay, I'll see this one.
The Bling Ring is Sofia Coppola's newest movie, a based-on-true-events tale about a group of L.A. teens (including Emma Watson) who break into the homes of celebrities. All style and not much substance, according to reviewers.
Here's the box office winners so far...
The Great Gatsby, Fast &Furious 6, Hangover III, Star Trek Into Darkness, Iron Man 3, The Purge (no idea what this is), Monsters University, This is the End
After Earth was a huge flop, and The Internship and The Man of Steel haven't done as well as expected.
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