Recently in Music/Liturature/Movies Category

Everyone’s favorite moral nanny, Michael Powell, Chairman of the FCC, is worried about the legacy fo Walt Disney people. What a good guy. Powell is again using his bully pulpit to complain about lax morals on network television. This time his target is ABC and its new Monday Night Football intro sequence, which is apparently pretty “hot and steamy.”

Doesn’t this schmuck have anything else to do, like, I dunno, fixing the massive give away of public airwaves to broadcasters, or ensuring that they produce enough content that serves the public interest (even if it is a bit steamy).

[via Yahoo! News]

I normally don’t care much for poetry, but we have been reading some of Anne Sexton’s work in one of my classes and one struck me. It’s called “Just Once”. I especially like lines 1, 14, and 15.

Just Once by Anne Sexton
Just once I knew what life was for.
In Boston, quite suddenly, I understood;
walked there along the Charles River,
watched the lights copying themselves,
all neoned and strobe-hearted, opening
their mouths as wide as opera singers;
counted the stars, my little campaigners,
my scar daisies, and knew that I walked my love
on the night green side of it and cried
my heart to the eastbound cars and cried
my heart to the westbound cars and took
my truth across a small humped bridge
and hurried my truth, the charm of it, home
and hoarded these constants into morning
only to find them gone.

The last few weeks I have (re)discovered that I absolutely love to read. For some reason the past few years I haven’t really spent much time reading novels or books of my choosing because I was too busy reading things that my professors thought I needed to read. But a few weeks ago I picked up a book I bought a few months ago because it was recommended to me by my ex-roomie Connor, “The Adventures of Kavelier and Clay”.

This book is amazing; it’s a fun, interesting, and emotionally (at least for me) rigorous read. Not only is it exceptionally well written but it involves my new-found obsession, Prague. The author is Michael Chabon who also wrote “Wonder Boys” which was made into a movie by the same name as well as winning a Pulitzer Prize (Chabon received a Pulitzer for Kavalier & Clay as well). Everyone should read this book.

Now I’m midway through “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson, the well known travel writer. The book is a “short” overview of scientific study from the formation of the universe to how man became man. I think the best part of this book is Bryson’s vaguely British style and sense of humor; he uses words like curmudgeon a lot and makes liberal use of dramatic understatement. Everyone is is not reading Kavalier & Clay should read this book and afterward we all will trade.

Buy A Short History of Nearly Everything

Buy The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Last night Katie and I went to see 28 Days Later. Usually I don’t like scary movies, especially ones involving rabid zombies, but in this case I have to make an exception. This flick was great and just the right amount of spooky and surprising. I recommend you see it today.

This weekend I got my copy(s) of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It’s the fifth Potter book and it’s been a long time coming too, so I have spent a great deal of time reading and rereading it so as to relish the wonderfulness and excitement. Originally I had pre-ordered a copy from BN.com but I wasn’t convinced that it would get to me on Saturday as promised (surely not Saturday first thing), so i went out Friday at around 12:30 am to a Barnes & Noble and bought both the hard back and the audio-book on CDs. Everything Harry Potter was half off so it was a steal! On my way home I was so excited I thought my head was going to explode if I didn’t cop a squat right on the sidewalk and start reading. Luckily I made it home where I could read until 5 in the morning without the threat of being mugged and risking the theft of my book!

My impressions so far is that this is going to be a great book. I was less impressed with the second and fourth books, the plot didn’t appeal to me as much I think. This book is—as reported—much darker and scarier than the others. And since Harry is 15 his teenage angst is beginning to show through in his attitude and thoughts, while the development of the characters and readers has produced some… er… surprising language.