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Movies and a street fair.
I watched three movies: Quintet a movie by Robert Altman that I've wanted to see for a long time. In an sf future of ice and snow, Essex (Paul Newman) and his young, very naive wife (Brigitte Fossey) travel through the abandoned landscape to a ruined city where people survive (sometimes) and play a murderous game called Quintet. So many questions--where do they get food? What do the residents DO with their time, other than play Quintet? But there are some well-wrought and memorable images--black dogs roam in packs throughout the area eating the frozen dead bodies (and there a many of both). An ice age "Seventh" Victim (or Tenth, depending on whether you're referring to Sheckley's story or the movie). Cast is also made up of Fernando Ray, Vittoria Gassman,and Bibi Andersson. Entertaining enough to keep me watching but not all that good.
Repo Men with Jude Law and Forrest Whittaker is a graphically violent and fast moving sf movie about organ transplants that are "reclaimed" when the recipient can no longer pay (they're exorbitantly priced so that very few can actually afford them). Liev Schreiber is good as the boss of the Repo men. Starts off well, but is too long and the ending really ticked me off (although I guess I should have seen it coming).
Luckily I left the best for last (I knew it was good as I'd seen it before): Enchanted in which the lovely Giselle is thrown out of her wonderful cartoon world by the evil stepmother played by Susan Sarandon (happily chewing scenery)and lands in Times Square, NYC. Amy Adams is utterly charming, Patrick Demsey utterly handsome, James Marsden (as Prince Edward), utterly clueless, and Idina Menzel, utterly cold. Pigeons and rats cleaning house to song, a chipmunk that loses his voice in our world, New York. I loved it the second time around.
Yesterday, for the first time I participated in the Jane Street Block Association street sale. I've been wanting to do so for years and finally got it together enough to set the date aside, pay for a table in time, and go through drawers and bags and cabinets to find assorted things or which to divest myself. It was satisfying. I made about $60 net and now have space in the cabinet under the sink (where I kept flower pots from plants that had died--they all sold.) The things that didn't sell I threw out, put aside for the Salvation Army, or gave away to the person who lent me the makeshift table and chairs for me and Rick Bowes to sit on. Rick sold some of his doll house furniture and plastic figures. If the day is right I'll do it again next year.
Finally, a brouhaha has resulted from the incredibly ignorant opinion piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. Darkness too Visible
A couple of points
1. Darkness in literature for young adults is nothing new (The Bell Jar anyone? Or The Old and New Testament taught to many young people at an early age? Or the unbowdlerized fairy tales...
2. The piece seems entirely unaware of the variety of YA literature. It is not all dark. This is where the ignorance really kicks in.
My parents let me read whatever I chose to from a very young age. Ok-some of you may think that warped me forever :-) I don't recall reading many books about "sensitive" subjects but if I had, for example, read a ya book about "cutting" or taking drugs they sure wouldn't have made me engage in either of those activities.
Anyway, many people have already responded in far more articulate ways that I ever could here, here , here and here
The twitter feed #YAsaves is where teens and adults testify as to how YA literature has been a positive force in their lives.
And as Libbra Bray points out, librarians are our super-heroes so support them.
I watched three movies: Quintet a movie by Robert Altman that I've wanted to see for a long time. In an sf future of ice and snow, Essex (Paul Newman) and his young, very naive wife (Brigitte Fossey) travel through the abandoned landscape to a ruined city where people survive (sometimes) and play a murderous game called Quintet. So many questions--where do they get food? What do the residents DO with their time, other than play Quintet? But there are some well-wrought and memorable images--black dogs roam in packs throughout the area eating the frozen dead bodies (and there a many of both). An ice age "Seventh" Victim (or Tenth, depending on whether you're referring to Sheckley's story or the movie). Cast is also made up of Fernando Ray, Vittoria Gassman,and Bibi Andersson. Entertaining enough to keep me watching but not all that good.
Repo Men with Jude Law and Forrest Whittaker is a graphically violent and fast moving sf movie about organ transplants that are "reclaimed" when the recipient can no longer pay (they're exorbitantly priced so that very few can actually afford them). Liev Schreiber is good as the boss of the Repo men. Starts off well, but is too long and the ending really ticked me off (although I guess I should have seen it coming).
Luckily I left the best for last (I knew it was good as I'd seen it before): Enchanted in which the lovely Giselle is thrown out of her wonderful cartoon world by the evil stepmother played by Susan Sarandon (happily chewing scenery)and lands in Times Square, NYC. Amy Adams is utterly charming, Patrick Demsey utterly handsome, James Marsden (as Prince Edward), utterly clueless, and Idina Menzel, utterly cold. Pigeons and rats cleaning house to song, a chipmunk that loses his voice in our world, New York. I loved it the second time around.
Yesterday, for the first time I participated in the Jane Street Block Association street sale. I've been wanting to do so for years and finally got it together enough to set the date aside, pay for a table in time, and go through drawers and bags and cabinets to find assorted things or which to divest myself. It was satisfying. I made about $60 net and now have space in the cabinet under the sink (where I kept flower pots from plants that had died--they all sold.) The things that didn't sell I threw out, put aside for the Salvation Army, or gave away to the person who lent me the makeshift table and chairs for me and Rick Bowes to sit on. Rick sold some of his doll house furniture and plastic figures. If the day is right I'll do it again next year.
Finally, a brouhaha has resulted from the incredibly ignorant opinion piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. Darkness too Visible
A couple of points
1. Darkness in literature for young adults is nothing new (The Bell Jar anyone? Or The Old and New Testament taught to many young people at an early age? Or the unbowdlerized fairy tales...
2. The piece seems entirely unaware of the variety of YA literature. It is not all dark. This is where the ignorance really kicks in.
My parents let me read whatever I chose to from a very young age. Ok-some of you may think that warped me forever :-) I don't recall reading many books about "sensitive" subjects but if I had, for example, read a ya book about "cutting" or taking drugs they sure wouldn't have made me engage in either of those activities.
Anyway, many people have already responded in far more articulate ways that I ever could here, here , here and here
The twitter feed #YAsaves is where teens and adults testify as to how YA literature has been a positive force in their lives.
And as Libbra Bray points out, librarians are our super-heroes so support them.