I am glad Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post book critic, stepped up and made the case that Catcher In The Rye sucks. I don’t know if Jonathan Yardley knows his stuff or not, but I hate Catcher In The Rye, and I’m glad to be seconded.
Category: Books
I wouldn’t mind seeing I Heart Huckabees, which people seem to like. I like Jason Schwarzman (everybody likes Jason Schwarzman), and I liked David O. Russell’s Three Kings, and I like high-concept movies. Usually.
What gets me, though, is that all the critics go “existential detectives! Quantum mechanics! It’s WACKY!” and nobody mentions Dirk Gently. I’m not going to get huffy about this, because art is theft, but hasn’t anybody read those books? They’re not as well known as the Hitchhiker’s Guide series, but they were still bestsellers. Apparently about six dorks on movie forums are the only ones who’ve picked up on it.
Yeah, that puts me in real good company. As I wrote to Leonard yesterday, I’m never certain that I have any taste.
Now the stupid thing will be in my head all day
For the longest time, I was convinced that that Stevie Nicks song was about a “one-winged dove,” which always seemed perversely funny to me.
“Funnier than a one-legged rabbit, Val,” said Peter.
“Of which there are no doubt several in these woods.”
“Hopping in neat little circles.”
Sumana always reminds me to post about books
The day I picked up the aforementioned new cell phone, I also went to the comic store and finally succeeded in daring myself to buy Brian Michael Bendis’s Jinx, after looking at it and slowly shaking my head for like a year. This review encapsulates pretty much all my feelings toward it, except I haven’t finished it yet–it’s a BIG book–and also, apparently everybody else who shops at Great Escape felt the way I did. It’s been flipped through and replaced so many times that large chunks of the book are breaking away from the spine, which is a shame. It’s still readable, though, and so far I like it a lot.
I’ve been meaning to post both of these things forever. First, even though Jon and Amanda abandoned their blogs, they do have a homey little site now. It’s even got Lucy’s cell number on it! Watch out for those “for a good time” calls, Lucy.
Second, Mister Munson found my posts about him and wrote me! He seems like he’s having a great time, especially in his new science fiction class; as part of that, he says he finally taught Ender’s Game, which I badgered him to do for about half of my junior year of high school. I’m pretty sure that means I win. Or really, that they win.
This makes two people I know (Sumana being the other) who have taught a sci-fi literature class. I’ve never even had the opportunity to take one! Injustice!
Too bad there’s no money in writing
Were you aware that J.K. Rowling has a billion dollars?
“Amory was content to sit and watch the by-play, thinking what a light touch Kerry had, and how he could transform the barest incident into a thing of curve and contour.”
I’m reading This Side of Paradise. Glad to finally understand the reference in the poem on Gatsby’s title page. I don’t know, I never honestly thought about it before, but I guess I like Fitzgerald?
I’d read on Neil Gaiman’s blog some time ago that, in a press conference, Margaret Atwood had declared that Oryx and Crake was not speculative fiction, as everything in it was extrapolated from some current trend. Both Mr. Gaiman and myself thought that was a fairly strange statement to make, and I was a little disturbed to hear it from a writer I like so much, but it turns out that she does say it’s speculative fiction after all. So much for gossip.
This is pretty much a post just to reassure myself, actually. Sorry.
Last spring, I read Atwood’s Negotiating with the Dead, a series of transcribed lectures about writing. The themes of that book formed a large part of my senior statement, and had probably as much influence on the way I write structurally as her style has had on my actual prose. Which is to say a lot.
I often have difficulty liking things–books, music, visual art–without somebody else’s trusted opinion to back me up and give it cred. I don’t particularly like this about myself, but it has saved me from some embarrassing devotions (let’s remember that I was big into the Gin Blossoms). There are a few things, though, that I feel I came by honestly. Semisonic is one, Checkerboard Nightmare another, and Atwood is a third: the three of them form a rough but fairly clear portrait of my taste in nearly everything written.
More on writing, in probably a couple of days. (Oh, and thanks to Sumana for the O&C link.)
Right, Christmas. It was good! The Adkins-Wood Collective borrowed the infamous Deb’s house (she was out of town, and we’re homeless) for the fastest gift-opening we’ve ever had, then left in the afternoon to come to Louisville and have dinner with Joe’s sister Laura. Who I guess is now my aunt? She’d probably be weirded out if I called her that. While there, I met her stepdaughter, who I guess is now my cousin?
Normally I’d make some crack now about the new definition of family units in the new millennium, but to tell the truth, I feel kinda behind. I just got my first step-cousin-in-law, man, everybody else has had theirs for years.
But yeah, the dinner was good and Joe embarrassed Ian and me (but mostly me) at the pool table. I got warm socks, emo hoodies, the first season of Highlander and as many copies of Finding Nemo as I have hands. Mom was at least a little taken in by our we-got-you-DVDs, what-you-don’t-have-a-DVD-player, oh-well-you-get-this-present-too gag, and that was good. In grand Brendanian tradition, I forced Blankets on Ian and Daredevil: Yellow on Caitlan, things with which they seemed cool.
Man, have you heard about Blankets? Just… just google it and read a little. It’s pretty much everything they say.