25 March 2005
29. All Families are Psychotic.
I am blind to the faults of Dougie and frankly the man makes me feel great about my personal life. (see title) Yup, Coupland pulls it off again. A corker about a bunch of nuts that you end up feeling at one with in a quirky kind of way. Unusual ending, typical of his style that definitely calls for suspension of disbelief for the greater good of making a worthwhile point but without sounding preachy. Top notch.
a good friday
Had an hours recreational skiing at the snow dome, ate a mixed grill, watched a film then went and chilled out with friends who live on a boat. Pretty cool day.
22 March 2005
My action-packed life.
Have had the dullest two days on record. Made numerous blu-tac snakes (one complete with forked elastic band tongue) so it hasn't been entirely unproductive.
21 March 2005
28. Milk Treading.
Milk Treading by Nick Smith.
A rather unusual book to say the least! This is about class struggle, gang warfare, hack writers, journalists and lovers. Only, all the characters are cats or dogs. It works pretty well with a stack of witty kitty puns. My main concern was that the book was shot with typographical errors which was very offputting. A quick, easy, fun read but not something I'll be telling everyone to run out and buy.
A rather unusual book to say the least! This is about class struggle, gang warfare, hack writers, journalists and lovers. Only, all the characters are cats or dogs. It works pretty well with a stack of witty kitty puns. My main concern was that the book was shot with typographical errors which was very offputting. A quick, easy, fun read but not something I'll be telling everyone to run out and buy.
Reading list.
Here are the books I have read so far in 2005. I included audio for the hell of it. Thought I might as well share it here and will try and keep something posted on books I read from now on.
28: Milk Treading. Nick Smith.
27: Tobias and the Angel. James Bridie.
26: Love on the Dole (dramatic adaptation) Ronald Gow & Walter Greenwood.
25: The Orange Girl. Jostein Gaarder.
24: Down Under. (audio) Bill Bryson.
23: Maus. Art Spiegelman
22: Crime and Punishment. Dost. (current)
21: Dream Play. August Strindberg.
20: Notes from a Small Island (audio) Bill Bryson.
19: Portugese Irregular Verbs (audio) Alexander McCall Smith (see review)
18: Saturday Ian McEwan
17: A Short History of Nearly Everything.(audio) Bill Bryson.
16: A Tale of Two Cities. audio. Charles Dickens.
15: Not the End of the World. Geraldine McCaughrean
14: Master and Commander (audio) Patrick O'Brian
13: Persuasion (audio) Jane Austen.
12: Boy Soldier (proof) Andy McNab & Robert Rigby
11: Bras & Broomsticks. (proof) Sarah Mlynowski
10: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Part II(audio). Bert Coules
9: Lord Loss (proof) Darren Shan.
8: David Copperfield.(audio) Charles Dickens.
7: The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (audio) Alexander McCall Smith
6: Miss Julia. August Strindberg
5: The Philosopher's Pupil. Iris Murdoch
4: Hawksmoor. Peter Ackroyd (abandoned)
3: The Road to Damascus.Part I August Strindberg
2: The Timewaster Letters. Robin Cooper.
1: Shadow of the Wind. Carlos Ruiz Zafón.
28: Milk Treading. Nick Smith.
27: Tobias and the Angel. James Bridie.
26: Love on the Dole (dramatic adaptation) Ronald Gow & Walter Greenwood.
25: The Orange Girl. Jostein Gaarder.
24: Down Under. (audio) Bill Bryson.
23: Maus. Art Spiegelman
22: Crime and Punishment. Dost. (current)
21: Dream Play. August Strindberg.
20: Notes from a Small Island (audio) Bill Bryson.
19: Portugese Irregular Verbs (audio) Alexander McCall Smith (see review)
18: Saturday Ian McEwan
17: A Short History of Nearly Everything.(audio) Bill Bryson.
16: A Tale of Two Cities. audio. Charles Dickens.
15: Not the End of the World. Geraldine McCaughrean
14: Master and Commander (audio) Patrick O'Brian
13: Persuasion (audio) Jane Austen.
12: Boy Soldier (proof) Andy McNab & Robert Rigby
11: Bras & Broomsticks. (proof) Sarah Mlynowski
10: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Part II(audio). Bert Coules
9: Lord Loss (proof) Darren Shan.
8: David Copperfield.(audio) Charles Dickens.
7: The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (audio) Alexander McCall Smith
6: Miss Julia. August Strindberg
5: The Philosopher's Pupil. Iris Murdoch
4: Hawksmoor. Peter Ackroyd (abandoned)
3: The Road to Damascus.Part I August Strindberg
2: The Timewaster Letters. Robin Cooper.
1: Shadow of the Wind. Carlos Ruiz Zafón.
20 March 2005
london town
Saw Ruby Wax in The Witches this afternoon. Very west end, very panto. Pretty good fun nonetheless. Ben & Jerry's ice cream and a wander round Covent Garden afterwards. Not a bad Sunday afternoon out with the lad.
18 March 2005
the palimp.
Lotus, is it just me or is Palimpsest knackered? Have been trying to get onto it today and yesterday and am getting nowhere.
14 March 2005
ebaying at the moon
I win a bid on ebay. It says:
Seller's payment instructions
Klik op de link in de omschrijving.
Seller's payment instructions
Klik op de link in de omschrijving.
12 March 2005
chomp
half my head just caved in.
or at least, i have lost a big chunk of tooth this evening. what was i doing to merit this misfortune i hear you ask. i was brushing my teeth. so much for the dental hygiene theory, eh?
or at least, i have lost a big chunk of tooth this evening. what was i doing to merit this misfortune i hear you ask. i was brushing my teeth. so much for the dental hygiene theory, eh?
9 March 2005
Maus
I finished a great book this evening. I thought it was good enough to share. Sorry to those of you for whom this is duplicate reading.
This evening I finished Maus. It only took me a couple of evenings after I settled down to give it some real time. As you may have seen on the Palimplists, I have given it a five star rating. So first off, thanks Bak for recommending. I never would have picked it up otherwise and I'm so glad i did.
For those of you who don't know what it's about let me briefly explain. Maus is a graphic novel. The author/ illustrator is recording his father's memories from his time before WWII, through his experiences as a Jew in concentration camps and into his days after the war as a holocaust survivor. The Jews are represented as mice, the Germans as cats, the Poles as pigs and the Americans as Dogs. These creaturely faces sometimes become masks when a Jew pretends to be a Pole to avoid detection and also, rather poignantly, when the illustrator depicts himself with a mouse mask over his own face as he tries to record his father's experiences as a 'second generation Jew.' The book is rich with imagery.
I think the book works so well because it is not simply a chronicle of the war. Spiegelman looks at the effects of the holocaust on his father after the end of the war - the difficulty he has in adjusting to normal life, the problems in his second marriage, the expectations he has of his son.
He doesn't shy away from depicting what was obviously a tense relationship with his father whilst still sensitively portraying the pain of an Aushwitz survivor. There is a mix of responsibility to the truth of his father's pain and experiences coupled with the reality of a relationship fraught with disagreements and ill-founded expectations.
He also conveys some sense of the awkwardness of trying to find the truth about something at once very immediate and entirely removed from ones own experience. Within the text he wonders if his father feels guilty about surviving and he questions his own feelings of not being good enough for his father. He depicts his own struggle to find out about what is essentially a personal history that he hasn't experienced for himself.
There is so much I could say about this book. It is a book with convincing psychological depth.It's not an easy read nor is it relentlessly harsh. The narrative dips between the war and later life so that the storyline is about Art recording what happened to his father rather than as a documentary of suffering. I would strongly recommend it for anyone to read.
This evening I finished Maus. It only took me a couple of evenings after I settled down to give it some real time. As you may have seen on the Palimplists, I have given it a five star rating. So first off, thanks Bak for recommending. I never would have picked it up otherwise and I'm so glad i did.
For those of you who don't know what it's about let me briefly explain. Maus is a graphic novel. The author/ illustrator is recording his father's memories from his time before WWII, through his experiences as a Jew in concentration camps and into his days after the war as a holocaust survivor. The Jews are represented as mice, the Germans as cats, the Poles as pigs and the Americans as Dogs. These creaturely faces sometimes become masks when a Jew pretends to be a Pole to avoid detection and also, rather poignantly, when the illustrator depicts himself with a mouse mask over his own face as he tries to record his father's experiences as a 'second generation Jew.' The book is rich with imagery.
I think the book works so well because it is not simply a chronicle of the war. Spiegelman looks at the effects of the holocaust on his father after the end of the war - the difficulty he has in adjusting to normal life, the problems in his second marriage, the expectations he has of his son.
He doesn't shy away from depicting what was obviously a tense relationship with his father whilst still sensitively portraying the pain of an Aushwitz survivor. There is a mix of responsibility to the truth of his father's pain and experiences coupled with the reality of a relationship fraught with disagreements and ill-founded expectations.
He also conveys some sense of the awkwardness of trying to find the truth about something at once very immediate and entirely removed from ones own experience. Within the text he wonders if his father feels guilty about surviving and he questions his own feelings of not being good enough for his father. He depicts his own struggle to find out about what is essentially a personal history that he hasn't experienced for himself.
There is so much I could say about this book. It is a book with convincing psychological depth.It's not an easy read nor is it relentlessly harsh. The narrative dips between the war and later life so that the storyline is about Art recording what happened to his father rather than as a documentary of suffering. I would strongly recommend it for anyone to read.
6 March 2005
Resistance is useless.
Well 'useless' might be a bit harsh. I went to see a production at our local theatre tonight based on a true story of the blind and visually impaired working for the French Resistance during WWII.
Resistance was performed by an all blind/vis. imp. cast. It was an interesting evening. If I were to be picky to the point of pedantry, and let's face it, I am, I'd say the text was a little bit too dense. It was played with passion but I thought sometimes relied a little too heavily on exaggerated gestures and tones of voice. The choreography however was impressive. There was a lot of climbing around on frames and short bursts of dance that worked well for the most part but occassionally didn't hold together.
It was a good evening. Not your typical mother's day present but I think it went down well with the M.I.L.
Resistance was performed by an all blind/vis. imp. cast. It was an interesting evening. If I were to be picky to the point of pedantry, and let's face it, I am, I'd say the text was a little bit too dense. It was played with passion but I thought sometimes relied a little too heavily on exaggerated gestures and tones of voice. The choreography however was impressive. There was a lot of climbing around on frames and short bursts of dance that worked well for the most part but occassionally didn't hold together.
It was a good evening. Not your typical mother's day present but I think it went down well with the M.I.L.
5 March 2005
4 March 2005
not quat what we expected
Tonight I attended a lecture on Van Gogh. It was really well done. Masses of pictures and photos of the landscapes he painted. A very vibrant (Slade School trained) guy enthusing about his hero. He even reenacted a moment from Van Gogh's life by letting off a gunshot and falling to the floor in the darkness of a slide show. Unexpected!
3 March 2005
diddly sQUAT
Today I bought 5 books for 3 quid. Then I left them at work so I can't pore over them this evening and introduce them to their nice, new, alphabetic homes.
From memory:
* Three plays by Strindberg. An nice old 1950's copy.
* Plays of the 1930's. Bought because there it has an adaptation of 'Love on the Dole'.
* Moll Flanders. Should have read this a long time ago.
* Something Russian I'd never heard of before but couldn't be left at 50p.
* Shirley by Charlotte Bronte. You can keep Austen and all her clubs for my money.
Best-smellers all of them. Magic.
From memory:
* Three plays by Strindberg. An nice old 1950's copy.
* Plays of the 1930's. Bought because there it has an adaptation of 'Love on the Dole'.
* Moll Flanders. Should have read this a long time ago.
* Something Russian I'd never heard of before but couldn't be left at 50p.
* Shirley by Charlotte Bronte. You can keep Austen and all her clubs for my money.
Best-smellers all of them. Magic.
2 March 2005
quatastrophe
Cooked a fantastic pork roast tonight. Scranchied up the rind and had a host of little side dishes to go with it. Cheesy leek, thyme butter roasted red onions, roast parsnips etc. Rich gravy. It was magnificent.
Half way through the dinner I remembered something. My guest is a vegetarian.
Half way through the dinner I remembered something. My guest is a vegetarian.
Stolen idea
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.
---------------------------------
I'm not sure about point 5 but it's still an interesting diversion. Here's what I came up with: "If all physical systems are computers, and if computers can perfectly mimic all physical systems, the what distinguishes the real world from a simulation?"
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.
---------------------------------
I'm not sure about point 5 but it's still an interesting diversion. Here's what I came up with: "If all physical systems are computers, and if computers can perfectly mimic all physical systems, the what distinguishes the real world from a simulation?"
28 February 2005
280205 damning with faint praise
Tonight I drove over to Milton Keynes and saw 'Rebecca' starring Nigel Havers.
I enjoy the whole theatre experience so it wasn't a wasted evening.
I enjoy the whole theatre experience so it wasn't a wasted evening.
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