Sunday, May 1
Last five...
Last five books:
+ The Stupidest Angel - By Christopher Moore
+ Fever Pitch - Nick Hornby
+ The Twenty-seventh City - Jonathan Franzen
+ The amateur Marraige - Anne Tyler
+ The Motorcycle Diaires - Che Guevara
+ Plus, I've been reading Aloft by Chang-Rae Lee between Fever Pitch and The Stupidest Angel, and I've started Windows on the World, a 9/11 novel by some French dude.
Last five movies:
+ The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
+ Fever Pitch
+ Million Dollar Baby
+ Hitch
+ The Pacifier.
Last five TV shows:
+Nuggets playoff losses (ugh)
+ Most Extreme Elimination
+ The Prisoner (via Netflix)
+ The Weather Channel
+ Televisded Rockies bullpen collapses (ugh)
Franzen's book's the best of that list -- and it was his first novel, too. Wow. Daunting. Big. Worldly. Aloft has amazing writing, too, but I haven't gotten much past the first three chapters yet so can't tell you too much about it.
I picked up the Moore book because down at Colorado Springs last weekend, his name came up in conversations a few times, and neither Jared nor I had heard of him. Turns out my nephew read him in high school. Go figure. Someone in the Springs told me he was like Tom Robbins, who I like a lot, but I would a say a cheaper, TV-movie version of Robbins perhaps. I suppose this particular book is hilarious, but it didn't make me laugh that much but for a few grins. (Still, I read it in three sittings, including nearly an hour waiting for the Grease Monkey guys to change the oil in my car -- [the best part of that waiting room was when one of the workers came in and asked who had the Pathfinder, and a guy next to me said he did, and the worker asked what the trick was to get the car started, and the owner said nothing, and then the guy said do you have to like twist the steering wheel or something, and then the owner admitted yeah you did, and then -- I was listening to all of this with my eyes buried in my book -- when I looked over when the owner got up to follow the Grease Monkey outside, I see the owner has a hook for a hand, a genuine steel hook, something you don't see very often on the Edge of nowhere, or at least the little paths I tend to wear into the planet making my rounds between home, school, work and the few stores I visit.]
We saw Fever Pitch before I read it, altho' I'm a Hornby fan and see several of his books here on the shelf next to me. I liked the movie a lot, but then I'm a sucker for baseball movies, and I like both Jimmy F and Drew B. quite a bit too. It worked. The book is about soccer, of course, English football, and nothing at all like the movie, as the book is a nonfiction personal account of Nick's obsession with Arsenal, the big north London team. I saw Hitch and Eastwood's boxing movie back to back in a mall in Arizona in early April when I was stuck down there for work. [The most interesting part of that night, aside from the popcorn meal I had, was in the food court when I spied just before the mall cops did a guy with a handgun in a holster on his hip, in clear sight (not concealed in anyway, which I suppose is as legal there as here, although not something I see, well, ever) and then I watched the mall cops -- security teens -- talk nervously to each other with the shoulder-mounted mics on their walkie-talkies and slowly surround and walk in to talk to him. I pictured the worse, of course, and slowly made my way to a safe distance literally out of the line of fire.]
+ The Stupidest Angel - By Christopher Moore
+ Fever Pitch - Nick Hornby
+ The Twenty-seventh City - Jonathan Franzen
+ The amateur Marraige - Anne Tyler
+ The Motorcycle Diaires - Che Guevara
+ Plus, I've been reading Aloft by Chang-Rae Lee between Fever Pitch and The Stupidest Angel, and I've started Windows on the World, a 9/11 novel by some French dude.
Last five movies:
+ The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
+ Fever Pitch
+ Million Dollar Baby
+ Hitch
+ The Pacifier.
Last five TV shows:
+Nuggets playoff losses (ugh)
+ Most Extreme Elimination
+ The Prisoner (via Netflix)
+ The Weather Channel
+ Televisded Rockies bullpen collapses (ugh)
Franzen's book's the best of that list -- and it was his first novel, too. Wow. Daunting. Big. Worldly. Aloft has amazing writing, too, but I haven't gotten much past the first three chapters yet so can't tell you too much about it.
I picked up the Moore book because down at Colorado Springs last weekend, his name came up in conversations a few times, and neither Jared nor I had heard of him. Turns out my nephew read him in high school. Go figure. Someone in the Springs told me he was like Tom Robbins, who I like a lot, but I would a say a cheaper, TV-movie version of Robbins perhaps. I suppose this particular book is hilarious, but it didn't make me laugh that much but for a few grins. (Still, I read it in three sittings, including nearly an hour waiting for the Grease Monkey guys to change the oil in my car -- [the best part of that waiting room was when one of the workers came in and asked who had the Pathfinder, and a guy next to me said he did, and the worker asked what the trick was to get the car started, and the owner said nothing, and then the guy said do you have to like twist the steering wheel or something, and then the owner admitted yeah you did, and then -- I was listening to all of this with my eyes buried in my book -- when I looked over when the owner got up to follow the Grease Monkey outside, I see the owner has a hook for a hand, a genuine steel hook, something you don't see very often on the Edge of nowhere, or at least the little paths I tend to wear into the planet making my rounds between home, school, work and the few stores I visit.]
We saw Fever Pitch before I read it, altho' I'm a Hornby fan and see several of his books here on the shelf next to me. I liked the movie a lot, but then I'm a sucker for baseball movies, and I like both Jimmy F and Drew B. quite a bit too. It worked. The book is about soccer, of course, English football, and nothing at all like the movie, as the book is a nonfiction personal account of Nick's obsession with Arsenal, the big north London team. I saw Hitch and Eastwood's boxing movie back to back in a mall in Arizona in early April when I was stuck down there for work. [The most interesting part of that night, aside from the popcorn meal I had, was in the food court when I spied just before the mall cops did a guy with a handgun in a holster on his hip, in clear sight (not concealed in anyway, which I suppose is as legal there as here, although not something I see, well, ever) and then I watched the mall cops -- security teens -- talk nervously to each other with the shoulder-mounted mics on their walkie-talkies and slowly surround and walk in to talk to him. I pictured the worse, of course, and slowly made my way to a safe distance literally out of the line of fire.]
