Book 17: Book Lust by Nancy Pearl

I have wanted to read this since forever but never found it in the library till now. The woman who wrote started that program in which a whole town reads the same book. That’s such a great idea.

I was a little disappointed by the book. She doesn’t describe the plots of any of the books, and I like the plot summaries because I remember titles that way. Her list ideas were as imaginative as the whole-town-reads idea. I don’t fault her there.

I did write down all her poet suggestions because I don’t know that much about modern poets. I think I’m just spoiled because I’ve got this huge list of tbr. Lately, I haven’t read anything at all. Certainly not my book challenge but that may change. Yeah!

How good can a day get?

I have one more small essay to write and then I am done with my classes. I’ve already turned in my two hardest projects.

To celebrate, some classmates and I went out to eat. We walked to a little restaurant I hadn’t been to before. We sat outside to eat and the blossoms from the tree overhead kept falling in our hair. It has been raining all day but for those 2 hours, it was warm and sunny. The food was delicious. Our waitress sang to us. She had a lovely voice.

I have job this summer. I’ve all but gotten through my first semester. I was getting a sore throat but it’s gone now.

I have nothing to do but rest and have fun for a whole week. I really don’t think the day can get any better. It’s just not possible.

Theology Girl: personal blog

Well, I’ve re-written this post 8 million times, and it’s still not what I wanted.  I feel shy writing about Adrienne AKA Theology Girl, cause she made this nice comment on my blog.  And then I wrote a stupid, dorky one on hers.

*covered in shame*

So, I will try to make amends by talking about how cool her blog is.  And how she has the power of funny.

I don’t think there are any running themes in her blog but she tells a good story, always.  She manages to point out the ridiculous without being petulant about it.  I love the look of her blog.  Her posts are cheerful, frequent and entertaining.  I felt so sorry for her when I learned how her friend betrayed her in the fairy tale. (scroll down one)

But I was completely sold on her blog when I read the John Wesley and the library post.

I also decided that this post would help me with a problem.

See, every time I tell a joke to my friends, they digress instantly.  By the time I get to the punchline, they have forgotten the joke, and think I’m just being stupid.

I can start to tell a chicken-crosses-the-road joke and end up defending myself against being pro-Children’s Crusade.  I don’t know how they do it.  Maybe I should take notes.

But when I read the John Wesley story, I knew I should try again.

I started the story. The conversation instantly moved to important Western religious figures, European vs. North American views of religion and the civil rights movement of the 1960s.  I blurted out the end of the story. 

Silence…

Then they laughed.  It was the first time ever.  I couldn’t believe I did it.

Thank you, Theology Girl.

I Wake Up Screaming (1941)

Well, there wasn’t any screaming of note but there was a very pleasant mystery and an early Film Noir.  It starred Victor Mature as a sports promoter and Betty Grable as the girl who crushes on him.   Then, when her sister is murdered, it looks like Mature did it since he was found with the dead body and all.  I arrogantly thought I had it pegged it at the beginning but I was wrong.

 The minor characters were entertaining. Elisha Cook was on hand as the night desk clerk.  Good to see him again.

The investigating cop (Laird Craig) reminded me of Marlon Brando for some reason.  His size and his line delivery, I think.  The guy did a good job with his character.

There was one amusingly gratuitous scene in which Mature and Grable go swimming.  It had nothing to do with the plot or the tone of the rest of the movie.  But it was cute and lighthearted and I had no complaints.

There were Venetian blinds and strong contrasting lighting, close ups and weird camera angles.  There was corruption and a femme fatale (sort of).

There were some cute lines:

“He couldn’t kill mice.”

“You’ve got a heart of rock candy.”

“Who can live without hope?”  “It can be done.”

Mild Spoiler

The Obsession Altar surprised me.  I didn’t realize the shrine to the beloved by the creepy killer guy had appeared on screen that early.  It was a fairly modest one compared the ones in current movies.  It’s disturbing to think it has been building up so long in cinema.

Nevertheless, the movie itself was satisfying.

no time talk

So much is happening, good, great, frustrating.  I have no time talk.

I love that the women look gleeful and the men terrified. It’s like the anime version of Sadie Hawkin’s Day.  The boy(?) in the tutu bothers me though.

Music: It’s Raining Men by the Weather Girls

Cat and Girl – comic strip

Cat and Girl at the Movies

Dorothy Gamberell’s Cat & Girl:

a party

My friends and I used to have two-day parties but as people have moved on with their lives, it stopped.  The parties were not elegant and not rock-star crazy but they were deep vats of silly.  It still makes me grin to remember them.

The first day is the activity day and the second day is the breakfast ritual.

One activity day, about 15 of us decided to dye our hair red.  It was messy and took a long time and we looked awful.  We couldn’t stop laughing though.

One time a couple had planned to renew their wedding vows in Vegas but she broke her ankle and felt too uncomfortable to travel.  So we decorated ourselves and the room in a “Vegas” style.  Some people made the regrettable choice to perform a floor show.  One of the guys agreed to wear a white jumpsuit and an Elvis wig to officiate.  I have to say, I’d never seen the bride so happy.

One New Year’s party, we set fireworks.  For some reason, the activity was very gender segregated.  The men set the fireworks.  The women stood on a snow-covered hill and drank champagne.  The moon was full.  Just before the “big finale,” one woman starting howling at the moon.  All the women joined in, about 8 of us, baying like a pack of wolves at the full moon and the fireworks.

I can’t explain why something so incredibly stupid is one of my best memories.

Anyway, somehow we’re going to have another one.  Everyone who has been notified is saying, “One of those parties.  Yeah, I’m taking the day off and I’m there.”

This one is an art party, and right now nothing much is settled.  There is talk of a puppet opera, Mister Roger’s Neighborhood style.  I have been nominated to prepare a “script” based on the fairytale The Golden Goose.

But then I got a phone call telling me to subsitute a golden calf for the goose.

I got another call telling me I needed to work in a spot for a rap song by Darth Vader.

I’m grinning already.

comfort manga: Aishiteruze Baby

Image by Emmey via Flickr

For my last purchase, I had several possibilities. I could get another Red River or I could choose Kare First Love, or Basara, or a few other titles.

Finally, after reading Aishiteruze Baby vol. 1 again, I decided to get the second book. A little girl Yuzuyu is left behind by her mother. The rest of the family nominates Yuzuyu’s teenage male cousin Kippei to take care of her.

Kippei is too busy trying to build up his junior Casanova reputation to worry about taking care of a kid. His extremely ferocious elder sister forces him to start.

Luckily Yuzuyu has a secret weapon: she is unbelievably cute. Well, not that unbelievable. I mean Japanese comic artists are the masters of cute.

Even Kippei is sucked in by it and starts taking care of her and caring about her.

He hasn’t realized it yet but his classmate Kokoro, a girl he’s been pursuing without success, is starting to like him because he’s taking care of Yuzuyu.

The one quibble I have with the story is that Kippei is supposed to be this ultimate hunk and he looks kinda weird to me. But whatever, I’ll go with it.

The story is fairly similar to Baby and Me and I think it is an established story line in Japan. But it is still charming to me. I like all the little stuff: her lunch box and her crayons and visits to the park.

And Yuzuyu’s so pitiful that I have to see her feel safe and happy again.

comfort manga: Red River

After I starting my my online manga order, I realized that I needed to choose two more manga to get the free shipping.

This took some serious thought. My official rule for myself is to collect only three series at a time. But now I was completing a series, From Far Away.

I added a Red River title. I’m way behind in collecting this series because the art seemed a little cartoony, and I didn’t try it. But I became committed to the story after a book or two.

An ordinary-Japanese-schoolgirl Yuri gets sucked into the ancient Hittite kingdom and turns out to be extra special. Just like Noriko in From Far Away, pretty much everyone in the Hittite kingdom wants kill Yuri.

She meets a Hittite prince, Kail Mursili, who has apparently has this mental list: 1. conquer the known world. 2. bed the ordinary-Japanese-schoolgirl. 3. look hotter, if possible.

He’s not nearly so cool as Izark but he’s grown on me. Kail started out self-centered and ludicrously arrogant. But slowly, he has become more compassionate to those around him.

Plus, he’s having no luck achieving no. 2 on his list. Yuri has been determined to elude him.

When Kail revealed that he and Yuri had not had sex yet, his male friends were horrified. They suggested all kinds of remedies to correct his problem. My favorite was the medicinal curative bath.

The story is bloody and sexually suggestive, and actions have consequences that can’t be undone. Yuri was never that helpless and as the series has gone on, she has become stronger and stronger. I can see why the military prince Kail has fallen for her completely.

I knew nothing about the Hittites and I admit that I cheated and researched quite a bit to figure out what would happen to Kail and Yuri. Even if I didn’t like Yuri, I’d probably follow this title.

Yep, so that went on my order.

comfort manga: From Far Away

Because I’m feeling stressed lately, I decided to reread some old manga.

I started with From Far Away by Kyoko Hikawa, which is my favorite shojo manga series ever. It’s about Noriko, an ordinary-Japanese-schoolgirl (one breath), who gets thrown into a fantasy world. There is she meets the COOLEST guy ever. (wait a minute, pink sparkle hearts are getting in my way.)

He’s called Izark in the English language version. His big secret is that he is a sky demon. And the ordinary-Japanese-schoolgirl is the catalyst by which his awesome destructive power is unleashed.

I guess it’s no different than any other fantasy shojo. Noriko cries a lot (but then everyone in the whole world is determined to kill her). Izark is aloof and impossibly handsome. They have to save the world.

They can’t be together (sky demon) and they can’t be apart (true love). It’s not an especially carnal relationship but that makes it even more like an Andrew Lang fairy tale to me.

The couple is all loveliness, innocent love and noble suffering.

And to think that at first I thought it that it wouldn’t be romantic enough for me.

The series does feature nifty world building, much politics, rampaging monsters, evil wizards, extended fight scenes and gory death.

But that’s just filler.

Anyway, I decided to buy some manga to encourage myself to keep to going. I didn’t realize that I have only 3 more volumes to finish the series. So, I bought all of them!

Gotta go, the pink sparkle hearts are back. Gah! And dozens of puffy rainbows!