Category: Books

Clichés so totally rock my world

I was horrified to read a list of clichés on gawker… and I’ve used almost every one.

I will try to “use my words” in future.  If I do any LOLcats stuff I’ll put in my Livejournal, how’s that?  And perhaps I will be more judicious in my use of italics.

I draw the line at my ‘Inertnests’ neologizm going away, though.  I thought it was a nice play on words, all those people in their little inert nests, smashing the stumble button, playing around with reddit, watching Noam Chomsky interviews on youtube….

Today I will do a bundle buggy shop.  I want to see how hard it is to shop locally…..

Oh my god.  I went to the Chinese greasy spoon at the corner of 22nd and Rupert yesterday am.  I ordered scrambled eggs and sausage and got scrambled eggs and fried wieners.  While I was contemplating this horkworthy attempt at breakfast, a trembling, staggering cockroach meandered down the far wall next to the kitchen.

I dropped by Planet Bachelor where the boys had a full house – Jessica W and Katie were there for brekky.  Christ, I should have gone there first.  I hung around long enough to suck back some coffee and pick up some more tax return stuff and then went home, where I stared at the walls and did zero packing for about six hours.  To intersperse with staring at the walls I re-read Curse of Chalion and read Oryx and Crake, which is like holy crap, how many dystopian novels does the world actually require?
Then I came back here on the bus… which only runs every half hour after supper on weekends.  Gizmo and Eddie are starting to get used to me and they are certainly handsome cats.  Eddie will walk right up to you and give you a shove when he’s hungry, with his paw.  It was quite funny.  Both of the cats snore; Giz is wheezing quietly right now.

I’m contemplating the pile of remotes and wondering if I dare try to turn something on.  I need coffee.

Nurse Nelly Nurdles!!!!

My dad used to make unholy amounts of fun of my mother for reading Harlequin Romances – and yes, I did read a fair amount of them myself when I was younger.  He called them Nurse Nelly Nurdles and implied that her brains were turning into necrotic mush anytime she relaxed with one.

So herewith, the internet’s premier collection of BOOKS WITH NURSES.

The cover art alone is worth the price of admission.

A turtle that does tricks?

I saw the video on CNN.com.  It rolls over, plays dead and shakes a claw. A behavioural psychologist spent ten years training the reptile.
When I was a kid we had a tortoise named Torpid.  He did two memorable things.  He shat all over my Mary Poppins Pop-up Book,  and he ran away.  Yes, we put him outside to stretch his legs and he was a bit better at it than we thought.

Salmon Chanted Evening

Well, that was entirely a slice of life. I mean, how many women in Vancouver had a date last night that included:

  • a threat to be serenaded – on triangle? (He plays well; he even has an album credit!) He plays other percussion instruments <<<--- wOOt, Catherine!  and pennywhistle too. I wants me some triangle loving from Ward's Music now. Actually today I'm buying a snare head and brushes but that's another story.
  • a listen to the album, which is lively English trad tunes?  To preserve his privacy, no link alas.
  • a trip upstairs to view…to view not etchings, but Shuffle Demon videos? Like, more than one. I got to watch Out of my House, Roach! (more than once, I loved it so much) and Spadina Bus, and there were more yet. I countered with the Dudley Moore Beethoven Sonata version of the Colonel Bogey March, which is brilliant (I think rOn sent me that link). For the life of us we couldn’t find an audio of the Peter Cook Coal Miner/Judge skit but we found the text. He countered with the Shirt Sketch from early John Cleese Graham Chapman days. And there was some other stuff in there but it was jolly good fun, like his Morris dancing road trip picture.
  • Double Chocolate Stout beer? Quoth he, I don’t know why I got given this, I never touch beer. Well I did in a rather total war kind of way, and it was yummy…
  • Leftover Chinese food from a splendid meal at Angel on Fraser? (Except the soup, the soup bit sand). Quoth he, I don’t like leftovers.  Hmmm.
  • A wonderful hour poking around books from the thirties about engineering marvels and archaeological digs?

I am now contemplating moving furniture some more and then Keith’s going to come over and we’re going to shop and try to find the Serenity DVD (director’s cut/special edition).  Tomorrow, Kopper and I will hang out.

At some point I have to figure out what the hell I’m doing for New Year’s Eve.  I have six different prospects, but I want to do stannomancy at the Dalai Jarmo’s again, and the folks say they are up for having me…. it’s also the closest.  Always a consideration.

Victoria II

I am currently reading the Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt.

It’s an excellent book, and it makes me very happy to be a Unitarian.  Not because the author is, but because the ideas expressed in it are so amazingly and repeatedly Unitarian that the whole bloody book comes off as nothing so much as a strikingly amazing Unitarian sermon or group of sermons. 

Also, LTGW at work keeps saying, “You have to read Cialdini‘s Influence, you have to read Cialdini’s Influence” and now that I’m reading the Happiness Hypothesis I guess I’ll have to because Haidt cites it constantly.

The metahypothesis is that science and emotion don’t have to conflict.  This is actually the big scrap between Faith and Reason right now, or as seen by the religious types, Big Satanic Soulless Violent Freedom Hating Science and Poor Put-upon Faith, or by atheists, Rationality vs. Whiny Ass Crybaby Hyperemotional GodWalloping.

Anyway, I’m havin’ a lovely time laying about reading and hanging with the folks.  Jeff just turned up… I’m going to see if I can get him to run me out to the mall.

Golden Compass

Man, I wish I’d taken Patricia’s advice.  They got precisely two things right; the girl who plays Lyra, who is perfectly cast, and the fight scene between the two armoured bears.  Everything else sucked the business end of a Greyhound bus station men’s restroom mop.  Fifteen minutes into the movie I was ready to challenge to mortal combat the (screamingly politically incorrect adjective herewith deleted) music department. I went to IMDB so I could abuse who wrote the soundtrack but it was written by a committee as best I can tell and all there is a ‘music coordinator’.  The music was so badly timed to the action it’s like, “We’re going to put all the money on the screen and if the music is cheesier than a grindhouse porn soundtrack… nobody will notice.” Well I f*****g well did you morons, and if this movie cost 160 million to make and I have to watch it with the sound off because (while visually good) the script and soundtrack have me clapping my hands over my ears in horrified disbelief, you’ve not exactly got your money’s worth now have you.  I turned to Keith as the credits rolled and said, “I am so happy I didn’t pay for that.”  To which his response was a simple, “Ditto,” which concluded our discussion of the film.
In other news, I am corresponding with somebody from teh Craigslists whose pithy and entertaining posts are enlivening my life greatly.  Usually I send a pic – or forward my blog link – and the guy changes his email address and leaves town.  I can live in hope; this one hasn’t.

Xmas Antidotes

Funny cards.

The economics of Xmas giving.

Xmas hate – ten reasons to not like it.  Yes, the list is familiar, but there’s a sophomoric venom to it which I quite enjoy.

My ten favourite things about Christmas.

  1. Carols.  Singing them.  I don’t give a shit if I never HEAR another canned Christmas carol, but singing them is a different story.
  2. A string of dark blue incandescent lights along the roof line of a bungalow.
  3. Cooking up the turkey and having everybody go “ah!” when it comes to the table.
  4. Sitting around the homestead looking at old pictures with the family.
  5. Watching the Alastair Sims version of “A Christmas Carol”….  and turning on the TV just at the right time to catch the “Sisters” duet from White Christmas without having to watch the whole movie.
  6. Knowing that I will never again get exactly what I want for Christmas and being fine with that, because the gift part of Christmas really is for little people.
  7. Not having to beat the kids over the head anymore to write thankyou cards.
  8. Making biscotti all through the month of December and treating people at work.
  9. Listening to my father roar with laughter at the weather forecasts elsewhere in Canada.
  10. I always get cool books from Jeff.

Power shop

patriciaandallegra2007.jpg

Pic is of me and Patricia at the party. Hey nautilus3, recognize that jacket??? (honk, tweet, snicker).
So, between 12 and 2 today, I:

Booked the car and ran downstairs and threw a bag of to-be-recycled clothing in it; drove to Planet Bachelor (having phoned and ascertained that Paul wasn’t there and Keith was) and hung with Keith for about 20 minutes, also unloading two books of Paul’s that ended up over here, taking back Katie’s bag and cleaned clothes and Harry Potter VI and VII AND her volume 2 Strangers in Paradise and a couple of free movie tix for Keith AND Paul’s mickey of Ron Superior which I picked up for him in Santo Domingo; then went over to Highgate to the Liquor Store and picked up Saint Ambroise Apricot (I had no idea it was still available), Stella Artois and Lion Winter; dropped off the clothes at the Value Village on Edmonds and picked up a 20% off coupon; went into the store and picked out 4 dresses and bought 3 (all very frou frou, and one is Allegra brand, so that was a giggle – I had wanted to buy it in Costco 4 years ago and here it was for 6 bucks….), then drove like the hammers for the Bay where I ran up the escalator, located a coffee maker to replace the one I broke (set it on a stove burner and turned the wrong burner dial on, quelle morone), paid for it (and some unscented laundry detergent as an impulse buy at the checkout) and drove home.  I really don’t think all that in two hours is too shabby.

Last night’s party continues to resonate.  They said “eat first” but there were boatloads of food, all really nice substantial appies.  Katie K and I wandered around the Georgia O’Keefe exhibit – the party was at the Vancouver Art Gallery.  She was a remarkable artist, and a remarkable woman, and I think I’m going to look around for a decent bio of her.  I think of all the stuff I saw last night that it was her cityscapes which I found most compelling. I have been trying to think of a word for her style, but I’ll have to use two words instead of one:  recklessly beautiful.

Snide note.  That fecking DJ couldn’t sync a beat worth beans.

The weather today is simply glorious.  I was thinking of continuing cleaning, but I think I’ll go for a walk instead.

Tonight, orchestral music at the Orpheum.  Katie K keeps exposing me to Kultur, and I trot meekly behind, trying like hell to look intelligent or keep up.  Here she is at the party looking glamourous.
glamourgirl.jpg

Work work work

I used to have a picture of Kung Fu Mike, figleafed by a laptop but otherwise starkers, which had that title.  I suspect it’s on the old computer back at Planet Bachelor; I must recover it at some point.

I had a very productive day yesterday, having drawn some of my bile during my long conversation with Patricia, and then I had a very pleasant evening with one half of the Minions of Loki, since we ate at the Penny, which is more or less halfway between her place and mine on Hastings.  The Penny is the very model of a Chinese greasy spoon.  I had sufficiency of leftovers for another two meals, yay.

I need help from a Mac geek to figure out why I am having problems with making my RAR or avi files run.  I suspect a compression issue.

Saturday is the company Christmas party…. Katie K and I are going.  She is planning on wearing a dress and getting an updo, which is a lot like saying Eddie Izzard has given up on high heels.  I am trying to figure out how I’m supposed to acquire a second hand tux between now and then; I think it’s more likely I’ll just wear what I wore last year.  It makes me look immensely fat and I have to take the whole thing off to take a whiz, but it’s comfy and dressier than what I normally sport… as Catherine once remarked, “Oh, Allegra, you dress like a grad student” which, considering I was raised by grad students, seems no stretch.  As for the tux, I can picture the William Hamilton cartoon with a woman sporting a tux with no difficulty, which is probably why, besides the expense, I am resisting.  There are apparently going to be Engineers in Tuxes at the Christmas (oh hell, the Company Holiday Cheer) party.  The following Saturday we’ll be going to Katie K’s company holiday buntoss, the biggest difference being there are TWO free drink tokens, and people will be bringing dogs.  I am OBVIOUSLY working for the wrong company.

Daughter Katie’s 19th passed without incident; Dax gave her a handmade plaque with her name on it, so it sounds like he was doing something to improve the shining hour while she was gone.

It’s been quite frosty up here in the mornings; walking to work has been an adventure.

By copy to Chipper, on the subject of Christmas songs, have you ever heard Dominic the Donkey? I think you have to be Italian to be familiar with it; Gianna at work exposed me to it and now I can’t get the little beggar out of my head.  It’s all about how Santa has to deliver prezzies with a donkey because reindeer cannot climb ‘the hills of I-ta-ly!’.  It was a new one on me.

Saturday will be a busy busy day for me, because the Dunnettfolk will be Spitting over at Jan’s that day.  And Spits, as I must explain, are the names those events where Dunnett fans gather and eat and talk and drink and show slides of their trips to Dunnett places (like Iceland and the Orkneys and the west coast of Africa and Cairo and the Crimea and Russia and Bruges).  My father’s eyes glazed over at gather.

Weekend wrap up.

I can’t believe Pukka Orchestra didn’t make this list.

– this list will be food for arguments for the next dozens of years.

The church supper went great – as we are a caravan of faith at the moment, with no settled home (besides the Gathering Place), I now have dishes from the banquet to do. Fortunately I have a dishwasher ;). I also performed The Tapioca Song. The Beacon Home Companion was even better than last year, and that’s saying something. Don Hauka is a genius… There, I said it! And everybody else was wonderful too… Derek’s antics as “The Chalice” (the Unitarian Superhero) were wonderful as always.

Sometime today I will be getting the Quicktime version of the Tapioca Song video, and THEN I’ll post it to Youtube. Stay tuned, as they say. Katie K saw it yesterday and pronounced herself entertained.

Katie has moved back in with Paul and Keith and now is a resident of Planet Bachelor. She has her own bathroom too, the lucky stiff. I suspect she will greatly appreciate her new digs.  Her boyfriend… for such he is, still, alas, has a couple of three inch souvenirs from the cop dogs who took him down last week.  He has sworn to mend his ways.  And I’m going to lose forty pounds by Christmas.  I have seen Katie’s new tattoo, or at least the start of it.  It is a foot long snake wrapped around a heart.  (Fanboys note… it’s modelled after Katchoo’s tat from Strangers in Paradise)
On a happier note…. last night the four of us (me Paul Keith & Kate) did something we hadn’t done in the best part of a year. We watched a movie together! Cats crawled all over us purring happily! It was Les Misérables with Liam Neeson. I had to extend my booking on the car and then *&$^ forgot that I had to put gas in it, and then *&$*&! forgot to get a receipt so had to dash back for it. Didn’t get home until almost two. My weekend has thus far been enlivened by the existence of the progressive lenses perched on my nose. Driving was, as they say, interesting. I suppose I could have extended the booking and driven out to Richmond to participate in filking at VCon but not even the prospect of vixy and Tony performing her stellar “Mal’s Song” could make me want to drive out there. I’ll get a report in the fullness of time from Tom and Peggy.  Vcon of course has been rendered more interesting, at least in terms of GETTING there, by that 82 year old dude flying his plane into a building three blocks from the Con hotel….
My apartment is a disaster but unfortunately, as I was trying to wind down from my yesterday in the wee sma’s this morning, I picked up Gene Wolfe’s Shadow of the Torturer and, well, like that. I’m not sure how much housework I’ll be doing today. Especially since my laundry’s done. At first the book annoyed the snot out of me, and now I can’t put it down. There’s one of the most succinct arguments for atheism I’ve ever seen in it. Hey, this is fair use, isn’t it?

From Chapter VIII of the Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe, 1980. Thecla, a courtesan, speaks:

“One can’t found a novel theology on Nothing, and nothing is so secure a foundation as a contradiction. Look at the great successes of the past – they say their deities are the masters of all the universes, and yet that they require grandmothers to defend them, as if they were children frightened by poultry. Or that the authority that punishes no one while there exists a chance for reformation will punish everyone when there is no possibility anyone will become the better for it.”

As soon as I hear from the videographer, I’m going to head off to RCH to visit somebody from work who’s in hospital, unless she’s home already, in which case I’ll try to call her.

Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize for literature!!!

Here’s a pic of the dear old thing.

I don’t really fly my literary rag too often on these pages, but Doris Lessing had a big influence on what I think is important in literature.  She said things like “The way they teach literature is verkockt, and here’s why,” and “Read any book that comes in front of you and unless you’re being forced to read it for school, put it down if you don’t like it within a few pages.” And she blew off the top of my head with the Golden Notebook, and the Marriages Between Zones Three Four and Five, and Briefing for a Descent into Hell, and then Love, Again.

I dunno how Harold Bloom (the pompous arse) could trash her winning this award so hard.  Love Again was so AMAZING, the whole book rang like a gong in me, and I’ve reread it half a dozen times now because I keep finding new stuff in it.  He says that the Nobel Prize was for pure political correctness, and that’s bullshit.  It’s for a body of work that will stand for a long, long time.  People are still reading Kristin Lavransdottir… why not Shikasta, a hundred years from now?

When I stand at the entrance of a new book, I say, “Take me someplace I haven’t been.”  I’ve gotten that in multiplicity from Doris Lessing.

Rest and recreation

I got home yesterday 7:30 ish and upon considering all of the options I read Michael Caine’s autobiography instead.  I haven’t finished it, but it sure is entertaining.

I visited the folks at Pondside – briefly – and dropped off a small token of my birthday esteem to Juliana and admired the koi pond under the brilliant sunshine.  That house has everything a house should have, in my opinion, with the possible exception of a treed lot.  Then I think about raking leaves and figure it is all good….   It’s definitely a big house.  With a LOT of musical instruments.  Various filkers were there including Dr. Filk and Lady Miss Banjola, whose visible cast is a beautiful colour… I never had a cast when I was a kid, but it would have been white.   I mean, I couldn’t even manage to break my arm properly.

I had a loverly weekend and look forward to a productive week at work.

Sweet Bachelor days.

Ah, yesss…

So, last night my boss, may he be praised and venerated, gave me a lift to Scott Road Station, which was the only thing which allowed me to arrive in Victoria at a decent time.  Then I immediately cracked open beer and watched 28 Days. I had heard a great deal about this movie from one of my beloved coworkers, a guy who only gets animated when he’s talking about what happened to him before he turned 18 and movies.  Anyway, I really liked the movie, except the parts where I had to put my head into my own armpit, and Cillian Murphy is one neotenous looking dude.  If you want a scary, unstoppable image stuck into your skullfat… picture him and Bjork having babies.  Zar.

There are so many brilliant moments in 28 Days that it’s hard to line them all out. I know I won’t buy it, but I will definitely watch it again.  Script, cinematography, casting, MUSIC, editing, all great. Plot holes like a screen door in a submarine (just like Patricia told me when it was first released), but o well.  You don’t want zombie movies to be too realistic, that’s part of their charm.  They are fairy tales for adults where, even though things turn out badly, you’re still alive at the end.

And so to bed, where I holed up with Sarah Dunant’s In The Company of the Courtesan that’s bopping around the best-seller lists lately. As a Dunnetteer, I have to read this stuff.  Well, it’s set in Venice in 1527 – 1528, during and after the sack of Rome by the combined German/Spanish forces. 

The Romans, like the feckless duckwits that they were at the time, all riddled with corruption and internal factions and lacking army, intelligent leadership and anything like planning, shot the leader of the incoming army dead in the first moments of the battle. You know how leaderless armies who haven’t been paid in weeks react when they have an undefended, unimaginably wealthy city in prospect, and when half the incoming army is motivated by intense hatred of the tenants’ religion – Papism….  Yeah, it was not pretty, and a lot of folks got put to the sword.  First thing that happens to Our Heroine – an intelligent and energetic young woman – is having her hair cut off with violence by the army’s Calvinist campfollowers.  Way to spend a Sunday.  The story is recounted by her dwarven servant and in the voice of the omniscient author, alternating.  (I’m sorry, it’s just that I don’t get to say dwarven servant in public very often).

Woke up and lay in bed and read some more until 9:30ish, when I stirred my stumps and by our unspoken agreement cooked a somewhat low key repast.  The coffee was amazing.  I had three cups.

Then we went through the PILE, and there’s always a bloody pile around here, of Films in Prospect.  I picked Ghost Dog out because it was a Jarmusch film – I find him consistently interesting and watchable – and settled in with the movie from the first frame.  Forest Whitaker was mesmerizing.  Once again, script, music, casting, all uniformly excellent, and I closely followed the excerpts from the Way of the Samurai, which I now wish to read.  This is a buy and hold, in my opinion.

Then to phone my mother and tell her, “I’m having TOO MUCH FUN.  See you whenever.”  You can do this when you are 48.    Then a shower, and a walk perhaps, and then a renewed attack on the dreaded pile of celluloid. 

There are explosions coming from the living room.  What is that man blowing up now?  (later)  No harm done, he’s just flying an ME 2somethingerother in the leaden skies over a European city.  And blowing pixels up.