Just read a great appreciation of Robert Heinlein by author Jo Walton: “Out far, and onward yet!” Heinlein’s future history stories of the thirties and forties. It's part of Tor.com's celebration of all things Heinlein, in honor of his new biography. [Via Whatever]
I quote from my friend and fellow blogger Laura: If you were a superhero, you'd need to have this as your fortress of solitude. Of course you might not come out to fight crime. She is referring to The Giant Fort Of Books.
From Shelf Awareness: a cool bookcase/sculpture. As they put it, this makes on "look at the square states in the middle of the country with new appreciation."
On a non-book related note: those of you who are the right age/demographic, you might get as big a kick out of today's date as I did. In which case, you should check out Go Fug Yourself today and their celebration of all things Brenda, Brandon, Kelly, Steve, Donna, and David.
Showing posts with label tv. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tv. Show all posts
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Botany of Desire on PBS Tonight
Consider this a public service announcement for those of you in the US - Tonight at 8, PBS is airing a documentary based on one of my favorite non-fiction books, The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan. Here's an interesting article at mental_floss with more information.
I will be furiously packing, so I'm not sure I'll be about to watch the whole thing, but I definitely will be recording it.
I will be furiously packing, so I'm not sure I'll be about to watch the whole thing, but I definitely will be recording it.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Review: Dead Until Dark, Living Dead in Dallas, and Club Dead (Sookie Stackhouse novels 1-3)
My husband and I have been watching True Blood since it started and, when it first came out, he bought all of the books the series is based on. Known as either the Sookie Stackhouse novels or the Southern Vampire Mysteries, the books, like the show, are set in a world were vampires are real and out in the world, and star Sookie, a petite, blonde waitress with the ability to read humans' thoughts. My husband read the books right away, but I resisted, as I was not sure that I would enjoy them, having already gotten to know the characters via TV. Eventually, though, I caved, and have been reading them in quick succession. They are pretty easy reading, and don't take too long to get through.
In the first book, Sookie meets Bill, the first vampire to move to Bon Temps, the small Louisiana town she lives in. He's from Bon Temps, too, but left after becoming a vampire after the Civil War. Sookie falls for him, hard, after she realizes she can't hear him think, which is a nice change for her. Then dead girls start showing up around Bon Temps, and while some people want to blame the vamps, Sookie knows Bill wouldn't do such a thing. So she starts listening in on customers at her bar, trying to figure out who did it, before she's next. Dead Until Dark is a really fun way to kick off this series, and definitely made me eager to read the rest.
In Living Dead in Dallas, Sookie is attacked by a mysterious supernatural creature, and her co-worker is murdered . But before she can do anything about either of these issues, she and Bill are hired out by Eric, Bill's boss, to vampires in Dallas to search for a missing vampire. There, she gets tangled in the snare of an anti-vampire church, the Fellowship of the Light, and discovers just how many other supernatural beings there are who might want to take a bite out of her. This book was a little disjointed to me, as there were two different storylines (one in Bon Temps and one in Dallas) with nothing much to tie the two together. But it was still a lot of fun to read.
In Club Dead, Bill messes up, big time, so Eric sends Sookie to Jackson to look for him, under the care of a werewolf named Alcide. As it says on the back of the book, "when Sookie finally finds Bill - caught in an act of serious betrayal - she's not sure whether to save him...or sharpen some stakes." I really liked the complications the new characters and situations brought to this book, and I thought it was a good story.
The inevitable question, of course is: how do the books stack up against the TV show (or vice versa)? Normally I much prefer the book over the movie/TV show made from it. In this case, though, I'm not so sure. I like them both, a lot. For one thing, while the first season of True Blood was based on Dead Until Dark, and so far, the second season is based on Living Dead in Dallas, the books have almost as many differences from the show as they do similarities. Its a little bit like trying to compare apples and, well, maybe not oranges, but pears, at least. So its easier to keep them separate and enjoy each for what they are. Plus, this doesn't hurt:
In the first book, Sookie meets Bill, the first vampire to move to Bon Temps, the small Louisiana town she lives in. He's from Bon Temps, too, but left after becoming a vampire after the Civil War. Sookie falls for him, hard, after she realizes she can't hear him think, which is a nice change for her. Then dead girls start showing up around Bon Temps, and while some people want to blame the vamps, Sookie knows Bill wouldn't do such a thing. So she starts listening in on customers at her bar, trying to figure out who did it, before she's next. Dead Until Dark is a really fun way to kick off this series, and definitely made me eager to read the rest.
In Living Dead in Dallas, Sookie is attacked by a mysterious supernatural creature, and her co-worker is murdered . But before she can do anything about either of these issues, she and Bill are hired out by Eric, Bill's boss, to vampires in Dallas to search for a missing vampire. There, she gets tangled in the snare of an anti-vampire church, the Fellowship of the Light, and discovers just how many other supernatural beings there are who might want to take a bite out of her. This book was a little disjointed to me, as there were two different storylines (one in Bon Temps and one in Dallas) with nothing much to tie the two together. But it was still a lot of fun to read.
In Club Dead, Bill messes up, big time, so Eric sends Sookie to Jackson to look for him, under the care of a werewolf named Alcide. As it says on the back of the book, "when Sookie finally finds Bill - caught in an act of serious betrayal - she's not sure whether to save him...or sharpen some stakes." I really liked the complications the new characters and situations brought to this book, and I thought it was a good story.
The inevitable question, of course is: how do the books stack up against the TV show (or vice versa)? Normally I much prefer the book over the movie/TV show made from it. In this case, though, I'm not so sure. I like them both, a lot. For one thing, while the first season of True Blood was based on Dead Until Dark, and so far, the second season is based on Living Dead in Dallas, the books have almost as many differences from the show as they do similarities. Its a little bit like trying to compare apples and, well, maybe not oranges, but pears, at least. So its easier to keep them separate and enjoy each for what they are. Plus, this doesn't hurt:
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Maggie the Architect
Maggie plays Howard Roark in a recent episode of The Simpsons. How many of the buildings can you identify?
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Movie Review: Down With Love
As I've previously discussed (ETA: here), we recently watched Mad Men Season 1 on DVD. Its a good story, great acting, and, as you've probably heard by now, visually it's just perfect. I love the clothes and the design.
It also reminds me of a movie I think most people missed when it came out in 2003: Down With Love. This is an intentionally campy, silly and anachronistic look at that era, so its basically the exact opposite of Mad Men. But I love it!
It also reminds me of a movie I think most people missed when it came out in 2003: Down With Love. This is an intentionally campy, silly and anachronistic look at that era, so its basically the exact opposite of Mad Men. But I love it!
Here is the Amazon description:
The bright, glossy world of Doris Day and Rock Hudson sex comedies gets a self-aware brush-up in Down with Love. Pillow-lipped Renée Zellweger (Chicago) plays Barbara Novak, the author of a bestselling book called Down with Love that advises women to focus on their careers and have sex à la carte--just like a man would. Determined to prove that Novak is just as vulnerable to love as any woman, dashingly chauvinist magazine writer Catcher Block (ever-charming Ewan McGregor, Moulin Rouge) pretends to be a courtly astronaut who wouldn't dream of putting his hand on a woman's knee. This piffle of a story seems like nothing more than an excuse for ironic double-entendres and dazzling production design, until a sneaky plot twist suddenly raises the stakes for the movie's end. As he always does, the brilliant David Hyde Pierce (Frasier) scores the most comic points as Block's fussy editor. (by Bret Fetze)
What that description doesn't include, though, may be my favorite part of the movie: Sarah Paulson. Never heard of her? Sure, you have. She was the lead on Studio 60, playing opposite Matthew Perry.
There she is on the right, with Renée Zellweger and the always great Tony Randall. Normally I don't like RZ (and that photo is not helping), but I think she's really cute in this one. So if you missed Down With Love and just love the early-60's look, I highly recommend you check it out.
Buy Down With Love on Amazon.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Betty (Book Review: Feminist Mystique)
I'm late to this, I know, but I've been watching Season one of Mad Men on DVD over the past few weeks and have just been loving it. The clothes, the men, the aura - it's all just so cool. What else do I love about it? Being reminded of Betty Friedan and The Feminist Mystique.
It has been a long time since I read The Feminist Mystique for a high school history class assignment. For those of you who aren't familiar with this landmark work, here is the Amazon description:
Like Betty Draper (photo above, from Mad Men, for those of you who haven't seen it)(but you should, FYI, if that wasn't obvious), Betty Friedan was a well-educated suburban housewife who gradually grew more and more dissatisfied with her life as wife and mother. Friedan, though, had been a journalist, so was motivated to find out whether she was alone in her unhappiness. She sent a questionnaire to the graduates of her Smith College class, the results of which showed that most of the women were disappointed with their lives. In her book, Friedan wrote that women are "victims of a false belief system that requires them to find identity and meaning in their lives through their husbands and children. Such a system causes women to completely lose their identity in that of their family" (from Wikipedia). Basically, Friedan thought middle-class women were set up to fail: they were only allowed to find their purpose through their role as wife and mother. If they didn't, then tough.
The book that changed the consciousness of a country—and the world. Landmark, groundbreaking, classic—these adjectives barely describe the earthshaking and long-lasting effects of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. This is the book that defined "the problem that has no name," that launched the Second Wave of the feminist movement, and has been awakening women and men with its insights into social relations, which still remain fresh, ever since.
Like Betty Draper (photo above, from Mad Men, for those of you who haven't seen it)(but you should, FYI, if that wasn't obvious), Betty Friedan was a well-educated suburban housewife who gradually grew more and more dissatisfied with her life as wife and mother. Friedan, though, had been a journalist, so was motivated to find out whether she was alone in her unhappiness. She sent a questionnaire to the graduates of her Smith College class, the results of which showed that most of the women were disappointed with their lives. In her book, Friedan wrote that women are "victims of a false belief system that requires them to find identity and meaning in their lives through their husbands and children. Such a system causes women to completely lose their identity in that of their family" (from Wikipedia). Basically, Friedan thought middle-class women were set up to fail: they were only allowed to find their purpose through their role as wife and mother. If they didn't, then tough.
As a historical document and a classic feminist text, The Feminist Mystique is first-rate. And as a stand-alone book, its very intriguing. The first half of the book, where Friedan explores her "awakening" and the findings from her questionnaire holds up better than the latter portion, but in general, this is an excellent book. Yes, there are dated ideas/passages, but I think this book holds up very well. I encourage you to read it if you have not done so already.
Buy The Feminist Mystique on Amazon.
Buy Mad Men Season One DVD on Amazon.
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