Astronomy will have to be revised...

I just finished the book I want to win the Printz. It’s sad and funny and bleak and full of love.
And it’s terrifying.
I haven’t been that interested in this year’s discussion. I loved The Book Thief, of course, but I have a sneaking suspicion (based on my usual Oscar prediction methods) that Octavian Nothing will get the prize. Librarians love M.T. Anderson, you see. And though I’ve read a lot of books I’ve loved over the past year (examples: Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, King Dork, Going Under),none of them really said Major Award Material. This has been much more a year for underground beloved books, those stories that you can imagine someone finding on their own (or with the help of a nice librarian, of course) and then feeling that deep kinship you feel with some stories.
Actually, what I loved about Looking For Alaska winning last year was that for so many people, there is that deep personal connection with the story. Almost a secret connection, like when you find out other people love it too, you’re a little jealous at first, and then realize how much you must have in common with that other person, that you both love this story that you had previously thought of almost as some kind of secret. I think that’s in part why Tiff and I reference Girl to each other so much.
(Of course, her laptop is making me listen to Fleetwood Mac right now…)

But anyway, back to the amazing, gorgeous, scary book I just finished. It’s called Life As We Knew It and is by Susan Beth Pfeffer. I had been wanting to read it for awhile—just another new book I was nice enough to let a patron check out before me at my last library that hadn’t shown up at my new library until this morning, when I spotted it on my way to yet another training session.
Yes, I started and finished this today. You know I read fast and have no willpower.
When the book opens, Miranda’s family is pretty standard small town Eastern Pennsylvania bleeding heart liberal. Her dad lives further east; her brother’s at Cornell. Her two best friends are completely wrapped up in their own 16yrold identity crises.
One May night, everyone who can see it looks up at the sky to watch an asteroid hit the moon.
The astronomers miscalculated density. The moon is bigger, closer than it used to be. The disasters start with things that are affected by the moon’s gravitational pull: huge tsunami waves take out coasts and islands. Having a huge body closer to the earth begins to mess with its core and magma comes out of all sorts of long-dormant volcanoes. And then there’s the other stuff, too: the food shortages, the fatality of the flu when there are no hospitals and no one’s had a proper meal, the scariness of being an independent American teenage girl when law starts to break down.
The thing that’s really disturbing about this book is how plausible it all is. I mean, not the moon-going-out-of-orbit part, but the chain of events. The mother, an avid gardener, is heartened by thoughts that she’ll be able to grow food until ash from the volcanoes starts blanketing and first frost hits in August. Girls who, pre-disaster, used older boys’ attraction to them to dream about leaving their small town and maybe get free booze now leave town with forty year old men, bartered from their parents by a dowry of bottled water and canned soup.
It’s strange—so much of the middle of this book is about the constricting of worlds when disaster strikes. This formerly generous, giving-to-strangers kind of family tightens into itself. The mother eats less so her children can remain strong, but gets angry at her daughter for forgoing an earlier place in a food line so she can tell a friend.
Is it just a pet peeve of mine, or can I call this the author’s commentary on how much of our country has become “Screw them; I’ve got mine”?
The end is very much about the family (and not horribly tragic, I’m sure many of you will be happy to hear), but it’s the Christmas Eve that struck me the most. Christmas itself would be familiar to any of you who are former Laura Ingalls Wilder fans like myself: in secret, everyone has been hoarding little things for months, just to be sure they have a Christmas.
But on Christmas Eve, all huddled near the woodstove this family is incredibly lucky to have, they hear something outside. Their neighbors have come caroling.

Sometimes, a story has a moment that just sticks with you, no matter where the rest of the book goes. Franny crying in a public bathroom stall. The Jewish wrestler painting his story on whited-over sheets of Nazi propaganda. I have a feeling the caroling episode is going to join them.

seven weeks of staying up all night

Tale of 2 Summers by Brian Sloan.
I started reading this book, was charmed by a couple details, and started taking notes to remember things for a review.
Then I realized my notes were becoming a post all on their own. So this is kind of a review, kind of a commentary track.
I wrote all this while I was reading it, when the thought occured to me.

• There’s this future thing—takes place future summer—spiderman 3
  • Harold and Kumar sequel—KUMAR’S BARE ASS
• Ferris quote at the beginning
• Queer boy fart jokes
• “bloody”—some librarians are going to shit themselves, b/c they’ve apparently never met a pretentious teenage gayboy anglophile: “Why’s there British slang if it takes place in DC!?”
• LOL-ing?
• Lang use—dueling bloggers
• Keep referring to Henri as a “euro-punk”—in light of his not-at-all punkiness and the whole gay thing, kinda weirdly icky/funny
• I approve of the word tits.
• “I don’t really dig on guys who are uber-gay”=scary Ken flashbacks
• Unless you know what Lambda is, no clue that this is a GAY BOOK from the cover
• Weird anti-drug moment/channel 1 reference p41
• Yum, Nutella
  • Nutella DOES NOT TASTE LIKE DOUGHNUT FROSTING. However, it would be quite tasty on a doughnut. Like a cake one? Yum…
  • And now I want some Nutella.
  • Stupid gay boy and cheese-eating butt/surrender monkey.
• I think the 75% of the way through, big teenfic crisis moment is going to involve Joey—the guy no one likes
• “emoticoning”—heh
• uh-oh, Henri is breaking into a construction site. Is he bad news? Will he be horribly injured ¾ of the way through the book?
• Also, Henri is a stoner. Which GayBlogger seems to be against, but in a very low-key, TV told me you were bad kind of way.
• You know, this weird anti-drug commentary is making me wonder if someone is going to find their blog. ¾ of the way through, of course. b/c if they did, all those construction site trespassing pictures would totally make things sucky for Frenchie’s govt-working maman.
• Frenchie looks like StraightBlogger! The plot thickens!
• I’m getting a telegraph from the book…StraightBlogger winds up with unassuming MK stop
• Omg—they’re making driver’s ed kids DRIVE ON 495. THE BELTWAY AROUND DC. That’s just crazy talk.
• I think GayBlogger made a move on StraightBlogger on New Years Eve. This book has a terrible poker face.
• Ugh, box wine
• Jim Carrey—outdated reference?
• Frenchie’s dad is dead! That’s why all the death-defying and stonering! And the stupid mausoleum conversation! Or, at least, that’s my current theory.
• I’m finding myself caring less and less about these characters. Except Brett, the Joysey girl who refuses to learn how to drive. I bet there’s a great book in her whole story.
• These kids live around DC and StraightBlogger’s afraid of NYC b/c it’s a “terrorist target”?
• StraightBlogger doesn’t know it , but he’s totally trying to Vlad it up here.
• Such an asshole!!
• IS NO ONE GOING TO POINT OUT THAT MK ISN’T PISSED B/C STRAIGHTBLOGGER HAD A WET DREAM ABOUT HER, SHE’S PISSED B/C HE TOLD HOT GIRL HE WASN’T THAT INTO HER (MK)!?
• I’m also confused by the fact that no one is calling it a wet dream.
• Oh, Frenchie’s dad’s just an asshole. Anti-climactic.
• Frenchie says there’s no French word for bitch. Um, chienne? Look, I did research.
• So, in their tiny crappy boring suburb, there’s a locally-owned coffee place, a comic book store, an Ethiopian restaurant, and a gay bar? I mean, I know it’s around a big city, but yeesh.
• Why does 2 teenaged boys making out in a suburban gay bar sound like a REALLY bad idea to me?
• Also, GayBlogger just expressed surprise that an Asian guy didn’t have an Asian accent.
• You know, a lot of the nonstereotyped gayboy stuff in this book has become a moot point by what a stupid boy asshole archetype StraightBlogger is.
• Pot brownies
• You can’t see Before Sunset without seeing Before Sunrise—that’s just stupid.
• StraightBlogger thinks Julie Delpy was lying about not meeting Ethan Hawke because her grandmother died! I kind of hate this book right now.
• THE BOOK JUST GAVE AWAY THE ENDING TO THE MOVIE. I really hate this book right now, and you have no idea how pissed I’d be if I still hadn’t seen Before Sunset yet.
• I like this MK girl. She says she doesn’t want to “hit all the bases in one night”; she’s a big pushy drama girl; and she totally told StraightBlogger to his face that he “had his chance last Monday” to have sex with her. Why can’t I just read a book about her?
• What moronic bar owner would let 2 15yrold gayboys come to his bar on a Saturday night? Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea?
• Oh, it’s under 21 night. OK
• When your boy says to someone that he’s not your boyfriend and you’re an overly emotional wreck, this is not the time for a Long Island Ice Tea.
• GayBlogger thinks Frenchie said it b/c his mom’s back and things are weird; Brett’s got some weird Rules-based theory. Or, he’s a 15yrold boy who doesn’t want to admit he’s gay with a boyfriend. Anyone think of that!?
• I hate when I’m annoyed with a book but want to know what happens so I can’t stop reading. I would totally stop reading this book if I wasn’t so damn curious and 40 pages from the end.
• Now, maybe this is just wisdom that comes with age (oh, I am so age-ed and learn-ed), but he’s not your boyfriend until you’ve had The Conversation and he’s said, Yes. I am your boyfriend.
• Now there’s a hurricane coming!?
• Tornados!
• Apparently, summer romances/first loves aren’t drama-ful enough for Mr Brian Sloan. He’s gotta get Acts of God all up in there.
• MK is so not going to get to have the most fun a girl can have with StraightBlogger. In fact, I wonder if the mook even knows that a girl can have fun.
• And now GayBlogger is taking relationship advice from Dr Drew.
• OMG! Is Frenchie DEAD!? I thought they didn’t kill off teenlit characters just for being gay anymore.
• Oh, ok. He just disappeared for a few days. The Frenchie is still alive, folks.
• The moral of the story? Bros before hos. The moral of the commentary? I want my 250 pages back.
• No, wait--if the moral of the story is bros before hos, where's my girl Brett? What happened to her? And why'd they do so much complaining about that Joey dude only to have him not show up for the last half of the book. Way to not deliver on your foreshadowing, dude.

ETA: You know what's annoying? Blogger publishes drafts under the date you started the draft. Luckily, you can go in and edit to a more correct date and time, like when I actually finished reading the stupid book and writing this thing.

Here's a truck stop instead of Saint Peter's.

Feed, if you aren’t a teen librarian, is a book about a group of teens, in The Future, and how vapid their Future lives are.
Well, actually, it’s a book about how smart M.T. Anderson is, and how, by extension, his fans are smarter than your average teenager (or adult, if you’re a YA librarian). I found the entire book to be condescending as hell; the worst, though, was the author bio, where Anderson claimed to get the idea for the language and dialogue in the book from overhearing conversations at malls.
Well, of course it’s going to seem like language and discourse are dead arts and people are becoming worse and worse at communication and vocabularies are shrinking if your “research” consists of listening to people while they shop. Imagine if he had been at a grocery store instead—every character would be obsessed with the firmness of their salad, the weird liquid around their meat. Seriously: think about the last time you were shopping for clothes. Were you having an intelligent, thought-provoking conversation about the world around you, life, love, etc., or were you insulting your friend by calling her Nina Garcia while trying to decide if light grey patent leather open-toe shoes are too old lady?
Yeah, that’s what I thought. They were cute shoes, though. Too bad they didn’t fit me right.
Anyway, the main character and his friends go to the moon and it sucks. (That, incidentally, is a paraphrase of the book’s first line. It’s a great line; book totally goes downhill from there.) It sucks because some jerks come and hack into their feeds, which are these computer things wired into everyone’s brain in The Future. Because that way everyone can know stuff without having to learn it is the theory, I guess. In practice, it’s so a thinly-veiled Abercrombie can make you want to buy stuff…in your brain! You can also watch tv in your brain and chat with your friends in your brain. But not in like a telekinesis, know each others thoughts kind of way. In an AIM is in your brain kind of way. I don’t know; I don’t understand the “science” behind all this, and I’m not sure MT does either.
Oh, and you also get advertised to in your dreams. Which, I would think, would make people’s lives easier, or at least more straight-forward. Like, if I go home tonight and dream about having split ends, I’m going to think it’s weird and confusing and wonder what my brain was trying to tell me. But if I was in Feed, I’d know it was just Loreal doing its job.
While our intrepid stupid teens are in the hospital, they meet a poor ickle sick girl, who is sick because her Future Luddite parents didn’t install her feed until puberty, or something. Because they wanted her to read books. Or something. Too late, in any case, for it to really mesh well. And I think they might be poor (so noble! Any minute now, she’ll be dancing on the tables in steerage with Leo!), so she’s got a crap model.
Of course, main character/narrator (remember, folks—it’s not YA if it’s not first person!) falls in love with ickle sick smart poor girl, because she’s pure and smart and thinks about things like the implications of having a computer wired into your brain and pollution and stuff. If they had a school dance, she’d totally paint a poster of the Earth that said, “Don’t tread on me.” And then vampires would come because they had to invite everyone.
But they don’t have a school dance, because she dies. (Plus, I think she might be home schooled or something. You know, by her Future Luddite/hippie parents.) And everyone learns a lesson. And every year after that, they celebrate Stargirl’s contribution to their lives.
Sorry, wrong hackneyed, “Let’s all learn something from the nice noncomformist because we’re stupid sheep” YA novel.
See, this is what really gets my goat about this book. It’s not just the condescension; it’s the feeding into the, let’s face it, natural condescension of your average smart teenager. Books like these buy into the idea that smarter = better, and that those who don’t feel comfortable doing what most of society does are somehow better, smarter, and have something to teach everyone else. Not only do I think that’s a pretty crap version of humanity, but people like that are fucking insufferable. It’s like if all the Smurfs suddenly deferred to Brainy. Or if everyone agreed with my assessment of this book because I’ve got an MLS.
I think, secretly, a lot of librarians like this book because they were teens who thought they were better and smarter then their peers. And, yeah, I did too, but then I made smart friends. And grew out of that shit.

Oh, and there are filet mignon bushes, which sounds kind of awesome to me. I’d totally be Homering it up, like in the episode where the Germans talk about coming from the land of chocolate and Homer fantasizes taking a giant bite out of a dog.
And the requisite flying cars.

He likes girls with names like Ashley.

At some point, YM collected the “best” of their “Say Anything” column.*
Of course I bought the book for my library! Yeesh, how could you think otherwise!?
Occasionally, I copy things out of books and tape them to the heater in my meager YA area. Display space is tight ‘round these parts, and I like the extra book-pushing this gives me. I figured I’d take some choice embarrassing bits from the book.
Um, what does it say about me that the choicest bits, the ones I keep laughing at, out loud, by myself in my office** are about farting?
Or losing control of your bladder while under a pile-up of friends, with your crush directly on top of you?
You know what’s weird, though? One of the chapters delves deep into the history of “Say Anything” for old embarrassing moments. In every single one of them the phrase “my face was red” or “was my face red” is used. Whether from 1967, 1987, or 1991.
But then, I’ve always suspected that these things were made up by the writers, designed to make spazzy teen girls feel better about their freakouts and/or less-than-confident teen girls feel better about themselves when they think, Hey, I wouldn’t be embarrassed by that. It’s similar to the women’s magazine phenomenon, which I’ve decided is not that women’s magazine readers are especially stupid because they don’t know the nipples are an erogenous zone. It’s that these magazines think their readers are so lacking in self-assurance that, upon reading sex “tips”, they think, Hey, I’m not that bad—I knew that.

*For the boys: “Say Anything” was a column of embarrassing stories. I changed out of my sweater and my tshirt came with it, flashing the whole school; I got my period unexpectedly during a ride in a hot boy’s white-interiored car; my date was all, what’s your dog chewing on, and it was a used tampon; my boobs fell out of my swimsuit; etc.

**Although, if I wasn’t by myself, I’d have to explain it to my officemate, so that’s probably a blessing. “Uh, I’m laughing at fart and period jokes, OfficeMate. Yes, I am 27.”

I mean I like my Skechers, but I love my Prada backpack.

Pagan Kennedy’s characters are always in my head. When I wake up with a pair of scissors, or a scrap of tshirt, or a plastic dinosaur under me, I think about Lilly. Hank stands in as a nice shorthand for every indie rock boy I’ve known who was desperate for fame and ashamed of it at the same time. I know the girl who creates a nest in the library out of ridiculous theories because the seminar is way over her freshman head. She keeps me from doing the same.
I also think of her as the girl who never wore makeup until one day attending that seminar in bright red lipstick that she quickly smudged off, but I think I might be mixing Pagan’s story with a piece about makeup from Bust magazine. That’s the thing about reading a lot—characters get mixed up in your memory, become different people. It’s weird.
But that’s the thing about a writer like Pagan Kennedy: she knows her audience, and uses a shorthand that lets them know she knows. But then, I have to wonder: Can I really claim that smirkingly name-dropping The Yellow Wallpaper* is a sly wink, when all around me are those complaining that mentioning the brand of a new girl’s lipstick is shameful, pandering, lazy writing? Designed only to sell more of said lipstick?
***
I just started Confessions of a Memory Eater. I’ll let you know how it is.

*just in case you didn't take an intro to womens lit class

you'll read it in a book tonight

I read all the damn time, and I read fast. Sometimes, I review things. Other times, I say I'm going to review something and then never get around to it. Or, I have a great review written in my head, while I'm flossing or something (someday, the fact that I never listen to "Health in a Heartbeat" is going to kick my ass), and then forget all the best parts when I can actually write it down.
This is why I would make a terrible actual writer. When I come up with the best stuff is when I physically cannot get any of it down, or even say it outloud half the time.
So I'm trying a new experiment. I'm going to use LibraryThing. You'll notice, once you link on over, that my tags are actually tiny little opinions.
I'll still be reviewing things here on occasion, but this seems like a way of keeping track of what I read that I'll actually keep up with.

I'm also planning on linking to my LibraryThing from my work-related stuff, as sort of a "see what the librarian is reading" dealie. Has anyone else done this?

power trips down lovers lane

...or a jaunt down memory lane with Melissa.
Remember how damn funny this was?
It says it has no comments, but it lies. Click on "Comment" to read others' hilarity.

I heart kids' book reviews.

It's about the Holocaust + this girl named Anne Marie + she has a friend named Ellen WHICH is a Jew!!

Jeb's dead, baby. Jeb's dead.*

Am I too much of a nerd? Because I've been listening to the audiobook version of Maximum Ride: the Angel Experiment and I'm really distracted by some plot holes.
Pretty Spoiler Space Picture from LOC

Plot holes like:

• No one wonders how they found the Flock's secret hideaway on the side of a mountain?
  
• Max hasn't connected the CHIP in her ARM to Angel's kidnapping.
  
• Does no one wonder if the rest of them have chips?
  
• Of course they're being tracked! They're big expensive secret government experiments! I'm building human/bird hybrids secretly, I wanna know where they are.
  
• No one is going to kill a mind reader. Unless she mindread some big government secrets. (But isn't my familiarity with various Judd projects why I'm having troubles here? I keep trying to build a damn universe, and finding out that there are all these other bird/kids in other Patterson novels that aren't here isn't helping much.
  
• Um, the adult disappeared 2 years ago. How are they paying for food, internet access, and, oh, gee, I don't know--ELECTRICITY?
  
• And who taught them to read the internet, anyway?
  
• Max looks in the fridge and makes a crack about "food fairies" visiting. Then, in the next paragraph, someone's eating an egg. Where'd the egg come from?
  
• Are they raising chickens?
  
• Isn't kinda gross to eat eggs if your genetic makeup includes bird DNA?

I don't think this is just an age thing; I'm betting TeenJessy would have the same questions. Of course, she was also convinced that Krychek from The X-Files was an android.

Now why can't I just sit back and let the story unfold? I don't have this kind of problem with the XMen; I just take it for granted that nothing makes sense, people come back to life, and I have no idea who half the characters are or why their outfits are a certain color.

*Actually, I'm kind of thinking Jeb isn't dead, but the title was too good to pass up.

We're locked out of the public eye

I think I've figured out why Sarah Dessen's books aren't my cup of tea.
It's not just that their stories about normal girls (and we all know my normal girl issues).
--OK, I should stop and say I really haven't read very many of her books. I'm barely a 1/4 of the way through Just Listen* and I read This Lullaby a couple years ago. The only reason I picked that up was because, shortly after determining that, yes, teenlibrarianship is totally my calling, I grabbed the Best Books for YAs list and read my way down. So the rest of her books could be completely different: I don't know. Reading Just Listen was supposed to be me giving Ms Dessen another shot, plus the story sounded good. C'mon, who doesn't love "Owen Armstrong--intense, obsessed with music, and determined to always tell the truth"?**
Yeah, Owen's obsessed with music, but it's clear that this book's intended audience is not. It's not just the usual "he's wears black so it must be loud" passage (although tons o' props for the oxblood Docs mention--you really can't go wrong with oxblood Docs, can you?) It's that the narrator keeps mentioning his iPod without a lick of curiousity as to what's on it. Our girls Andrea Marr, Bleu Finnegan, Cyd Charisse, or Samantha Madison would care, just like I would. Bleu and Sam would make an ass out of themselves to find out, with slapstick hilarity ensuing. Just like I would, most likely.
When Owen gives Annabel a ride home, none of the cds he moves off the passenger seat are named. I think this might have been the point where I said to the book, out loud (in my apartment--don't worry, my next door neighbors were too busy blaring "We Didn't Start the Fire" and "Another Day in Paradise" at 11pm on a Monday to notice), "C'mon! What's he listening to!?"
Plus, all obscure bands are made up, so if some girl was reading this and wanted to get into weird unknown music, she couldn't just google any of the stuff Owen plays on his radio show. Doesn't Sarah Dessen have people she could sucker into doing this kind of research? Hell, I'd do it for free. (Suddenly, Owen becomes a HUGE Belle & Sebastian fan...)
Look, I know rampant playlists would make the book twice as long (at least) and naming real popstars dates a book like a bitch, but there's an argument to be made that it places it more in a specific place and time.
Actually, a big complaint I had against This Lullaby was its lack of a concrete place. I prefer books with definite settings, whether I like that setting or not. I hated living in Philadelphia; I love when they get Rita's water ice in Anyone But You (actually Jersey, but around Phila--you get my point).
And that's a lot to take for a girl whose work computer is full of things like the online Girlysounds songs and "All Songs Considered" podcasts.
Owen reminds me of a conversation Tiff & I have had several times about our growing impatience with Thurston Moore. When you're in high school and haven't met very many cool weird kids, Thurston was the best thing going. He's obsessed with records, he loves talking about them and weird pop culture stuff, and he's got such the Cool Girlfriend. Then you get to college, and every boy you meet is a Thurston, and an ass. Except they don't want Cool Girlfriends. They want girls they can teach all about records and "good" music.
Which makes the end of this book especially irritating. Annabel becomes a perfect little music pupil/girlfriend. Oh, yeah, her home life gets better and she learns how to deal and speak up a bit, so that's nice.
This doesn't mean I won't recommend this book to anyone who I think it would be a good match for. It's just when it comes to thoughtful normal girl fiction, my personal reading money's on Deb Caletti and/or Maureen Johnson (seriously, do yourself a favor and read Keys to the Golden Firebird).

*This is when I started writing; I've since finished the book. And realized that, if I want to get any projects done evenings after work, I need to stop taking home my current book.
**Anyone else catch Henry Rollins on "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" this week? Awesome, and I'll buy Sarah Dessen a drink if she can tell me Owen isn't based on Hank with a straight face.

It's Not My Place (In The 9 To 5 World)

Did your high school have Channel 1? My high school had Channel 1.
Rob Thomas worked for Channel 1.*
He wrote a book called Satellite Down about a kid named Patrick Sheridan whose high school has Classroom Direct.
(Other things Rob Thomas has written: a YA novel called Rats Saw God [flashback!], Veronica Mars, Drive Me Crazy**.)
If your school didn't have Channel 1, and right now you're trying to figure out what the hell I'm talking about (more so than usual), here you go. Basically, it's a news show geared towards teenagers, shown in classrooms. It has A LOT of ads. All for stereotypically teenagery things. I remember a lot of pop and gum commercials, myself. And a really annoying one about studying abroad with the B-52s song "Roam" in it. In exchange for a captive audience to advertise to, schools get tvs in every room with a close-circuit-thingy, that they can theoretically use to broadcast stuff on their own.
Mostly what I remember about Channel 1 was everyone ignoring it. Homeroom is fuckin' early, most people are talking, etc. I always wondered what one extra subliminal Pepsi/Coke (see? I don't remember. I'm going to assume Pepsi, based on their irritating mid90s "Coke is for old people" pitch.) or Big Red (I remember this b/c I've always wondered what's so breath-freshening about cinnamon) would really change about everyone's consumption, and how much the ad rate would change if execs knew how little attention was being paid.
You know, when I didn't think the whole thing was the scum of the earth and terrifically offensive. I believe I've mentioned before that I went through my humorless feminist phase around 9th-10th grade?
I have 2 programming memories of Channel 1.

1. Being asked if the band they were talking about was the same one on my shirt the Monday after Kurt Cobain killed himself. (Yes, I wore the shirt then. Shut up.)
   
2. A couple of the Ramones guest-hosted one morning. Boy, if you want crap guest-hosts of a news show, pick some Ramones. Their cue card reading was OBVIOUS and HILARIOUS. And momentarily distracted me from the fact that I was the only one in the building who knew who they were. This is not an exaggeration.

Now that I think about it, maybe the huge advertising rates were justified. I mean, I almost always had my nose in a book/my journal, attempting to let the black coffee work its magic (you're getting a great picture of the kind of teen I was, aren't you?), but I can distinctly remember that damn Big Red commercial. People were, like, kissing. And smelling all cinnamony, I'm assuming. Which is, as I mentioned already, gross. And there was a UFO.

Obligatory "It's a Review! I Swear" Comment: Patrick's kind of a dumbass. And just when you thought he's learned to be less of a dumbass, he's pulls the world's biggest feat of dumbassery. I mean, I get not being able to say to Channel 1 head honcho-guy, No one watches, or, I hate this stupid hat, but the whole--SPOILER! SPOILER!--insinuating he slept with a female friend to her jackass crush to, what? save her from said jackass crush? I don't get it. I did enjoy the trip down Channel 1 Memory Lane, though.

*Not the Matchbox 20 guy.
**Which is actually based on a novel by a guy named Todd Strasser, which I didn't think was as good as the movie, but then, reading didn't involve staring at Adrian Grenier. Who I sometimes confuse with Rory Cochrane. Wait! They were both in The Adventures of Sebastian Cole!? Man, I get so easily distracted by IMDB.

Who's on top and who's on bottom now!?

Last night, I spent two and a half hours reading a V.C. Andrews book, when I should have been doing any number of things. For some reason, though, I didn't open the wine from the Liquor Barn next to Shalimar.*
And I know you want to hear all about the book.
I got it at my library's kickass annual Friends booksale, on $3/bag day.**
This is what Dawn looks like:

(the Amazon excerpt is a good bit)

At the beginning of the book, Dawn is a naive 14yrold living with her 16yrold brother Jimmy, her dad Ormond, and her mother, Sarah Jane. Who is pregnant with Fern.
A close reader (by which I mean one who has read at least one other trashy novel and/or is not a moron) will notice that, while Jimmy and their parents all have dark complections (Gypsies? Mexican? Injuns? Which do you think is most romantical?), Dawn is Blondy "Freckles" McBlueEyes.
That close reader will also notice that Dawn describes her love interest, Philip, as having similar looks to hers. Several times.
And anyone who knows anything about V.C. Andrews will expect someone to sleep with their brother any damn minute now.

Dawn doesn't disappoint. She actually hooks up with TWO brothers: Jimmy (after it's determined that they aren't related, though there's this whole bit about how their "hearts knew all along" they weren't related or something) and Philip. Philip and Dawn make out before AND after they find out they're siblings. Actually, Philip rapes Dawn in a very Spike and Buffy in the bathroom scene.
The bathroom off the tiny room on the ground floor of her new rich family's huge hotel/estate in Virginia Beach. Dawn is given the tiny room and made to be a chambermaid by her Evil Grandmother***, who totally rules over everything and everyone at the hotel.
But wait! Evil Grandmother isn't actually her grandmother! Dawn's mother was a tramp and got pregnant by a traveling musician (so that's why grandmother was so mad Dawn sang at her...), so Evil Grandmother came up with this plan where they would give Dawn to Ormond and SJ, who had just had a stillborn baby, and pretend to the rest of the world, including Evil Grandmother's son, that Dawn had been stolen away.
And Dawn's real name is Eugenia, and for some reason in a book with a 1990 copyright, everyone acts like being named Dawn is the craziest thing ever.

This book has 2 sequels. Considering that I'm pissed off at my usual hot weather trashy author, Anne Rice, for what she did to Mona Mayfair, I'm looking forward to both of them. Unfortunately, this will probably mean breaking my unspoken rule about only buying V.C. Andrews' books at library booksales.




*God bless Kentucky, and especially Louisville, where you can buy booze after 1 on Sundays. It just warms my little Quaker-liquor-laws-raised heart.
**Stay tuned for more PoBaL posts re: this years booksale. I got 2 disgusting chairs for $1 and several books of outdated sexual advice for teenagers.
***Everyone talks about V.C. Andrews penchant for the hot, hot incest, but I can't be the only person who wonders what she's got against grammas. Her books always have mean, nasty, control-freak grandmothers who everyone is afraid to cross, even to the point of poisoning their own children.

nazis + nerdiness = just another day here at PoBaL

I just finished The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.
Here's what it looks like:


This book was really incredible. I couldn't stop reading it, even while on the phone. Even though there were a lot of things I should have been doing.
So, Markus Zusak, if you happen to be reading this, here's a list of things you need to come to my apartment and do, since your book kept me from them:

1. Wash dishes. I hit critical mass 2 days ago.
   
2. Change the cat litter. If you could also stop at the store and buy a bag of Feline Pine, that would be great.
   
3. Put away my clean laundry.
   
4. Figure out how to rearrange my bedroom, because I don't like the current placement of things.
   
5. Make some Princess Bride-themed crafts.
   
6. Be a librarian for about a half-hour or so, since I've been late to work and have taken too-long breaks to read your book.
   
7. Also you probably owe me some waterproof eyeliner, since I kept getting all weepy.

Actually, I think this is a great new way to review books.

***

So, while I was visiting Tiff this weekend, we went to a bookstore near her apartment. Why? Because we're librarians, incredible nerds, and she wanted to pick up a copy of the BSC comic book.
After hitting the graphic novels (where I got my complain on, again, about 741.5 being the devil and the multiple copies of Fruits Basket celebrating their 3rd month of in-process-shelf habitation), YA section (YES, I go to the YA section of bookstores. VOYA doesn't publish cover graphics, people. Plus, sometimes I like to give customers readers advisory-type advice. I have issues, okay?), and new picture books (new J. Otto Seibold is adorable), there are magazines to peruse.
Tiff finds Nylon before me. I turn the corner to the other side of the magazine thing and hear, "Jessy! Look!" She's holding the magazine up, open to a fashion spread inspired by Daria.
I do that arms-up cheering thing I do sometimes.
And get the funniest, most appalled/a little frightened look from some painfully normal woman. To which I replied, "Look! Daria!"
She looked to be about our age, so I don't understand why she wasn't as excited. Stupid woman.

***

Anyone up for a game of Pony Pong?

A box filled up with peas.

The afore-promised book review clearing house. Now with more self-centeredness!

Nailed by Patrick Jones
OK, I was just checking Patrick's website, and why the hell didn't I know about the R.E.M. playlist!? I totally have all the songs, and I would have completely made a copy to listen along while I read.
Hell, I probably listened to at least a quarter of these songs while I was reading the book anyway.
And I'm now loving that one of the songs is "Crush With Eyeliner". That was, like, my theme song for awhile in high school, at about the age the main character of the book is. I loved the video, with the wacky Japanese kids and that furry hat. And Thurston played on it, and what teenage girl who hasn't been exposed to too many record nerds yet doesn't love Thurston Moore?
But I wasn't the "funky" (Please, please, PLEASE take that out of the book description. Please.) heartbreaker, nor was I the kinda popular smart girl. But I think a book about my high school career wouldn't have nearly enough supporting characters to be at all interesting.
(so very very emo...)
This book felt really true: the desperate desire to get out of high school, especially. I think I actually had that conversation with the author, about what made the Columbine kids different wasn't so much that they hated, but that they couldn't see anything after that.
Plus, you know, the mental instability and fondness for guns.
You can tell this is a book about boys b/c Bret doesn't talk about clothes as much as, say, our old friend Andrea Marr.

Monster Blood Tattoo: Book One: Foundling by D.M. Cornish
This book came with red temporary tattoos, which I feel is a hint other books should take. I mean, why can't I have, say, a temp tattoo advertising Nora Roberts latest?
I read this awhile ago. It mysteriously came in the mail one day, along with a letter explaining that another YA librarian had told the publisher people I would be a good pusher for it.
Well, they said it more fancy than that, but you get the idea. My parents were quite impressed.
It's a good, adventuresome fantasy that started a bit slow and ended on a dime. Actually, it ended before the dime. You know, I barely have the patience to wait for sequels when I read things a year after their publication date; it's totally ridiculous to expect me to handle reading a galley copy and waiting for its sequel AND publication date.
(Also, you might have noticed that I can't spell "seque/al". But hey, at least I don't say things are "addicting" when they're really addictive.)
There's also an extensive glossary, all sorts of other appendices, illustrations, and maps. I do love a good appendix. And I like when fantasies have maps, as long as they're not all, You have to memorize every little bit about my imagined world to make heads or tails of my story.
I'm looking at your ass, Tolkein.

It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini
YA doesn't have memoirs; it has thinly veiled autobiography.
The summer after I graduated from college, I had NO clue what I was doing. I took a temp job at--let's call 'em Vespucci Behavioral Care. Other HMO-type places contracted their mental and addiction care management to VBC.
Now, when you're dealing with mental and addiction care, not everyone's care's gonna get paid for. And they need to be told somehow.
The form of telling VBC used that summer was to have a temp plug names, criteria, etc. into form letters to send to people who weren't going to get coverage. Or, as I liked to call it, "Dear so-and-so, You may be crazy, but you're just not crazy enough. Better luck next time. Love, Jessy the Temp."
(Of course, they were later under investigation for denying too many people and had inadvertantly become a joke around the local psych hospital.)
This was the summer of 2000.
Ned Vizzini is roughly the same age as me. I knew that IKOAFS was based on his experiences, but I wasn't sure exactly when he had those experiences.
So I'm reading, and it hits me: what if he was in the hospital in 2000? What if he was "covered" by VBC? What if he had been denied? By a letter I wrote?
I am nothing if not completely and utterly selfless.
Anyway, the timing was totally off; you find out when Ned was hospitalized at the end of the book. But it made me wonder about all those letters I sent out, especially the ones whose birthyears were close to mine, or less than mine. Did they ever get care? What happened to them?
So, if for some reason you got one of those letters May-August 2000 and are reading this?
Sorry for that.

the kind that are only sorta hot, so they don't mess around with other guys

Just another periodic PoBaL review clearing house. Book reviews coming soon.

Silver Jews in Columbus, March 25.
My damn cheap digital camera apparently ate all the pictures I took at the show, which = lame.
This was a great show. In any other (non-B&S-seeing) month, this would be the best show I'd seen in awhile. But it feels pretty stupid to say something's the best in the past 2 weeks, so let's just forget all that, shall we?
They played lots of stuff, including a song by Cassie Berman, who's got an amazing voice and was wearing a really great velvet dress. I looked on flickr for pictures, but no one had any up yet. I wasn't even disappointed by the lack of room renting song.
And I had a PBR in a bottle, and wondered why I don't more often. Not even comparible (-able?) to PBR in a can...
This was a good weekend in general, what with a visit to the more-and-more internet popular Tiff, the discovery of a good record store, and H&M insanity.
I also took a picture outside the Chipotle we had lunch in on Sunday.

TransAmerica
A very good movie. Shitty popcorn, but a good movie. Sweet and funny, and with lots of shirtless shots of the male-hustler-pretty son. And a surprisingly attractive dirty hippie.

The Contrast Forget to Tell the Time
My favorite record stores are ones with lots and lots of listening stations. Because I don't tend to read about music, or keep up on what I'm supposed to like, I have the most success finding new cds I like when I can listen to parts of them. I try out a few song intros, see what the singing sounds like, listen to a chorus or 2, and then I can usually tell if I should buy it or not.
Even after using this method AND praise from the would-have-been-cute-if-beardless clerk (quoth Tiff: "Maybe they can, like, smell it on you that you made out with one of them."), this album was a bit of a disappointment. At its best, I felt like I could have been on an date with Duckie, Randy, or Fred Bailey. (Yes, I looked up the male characters' names in Valley Girl. I'm procrastinating here.) You know, in the clubs where bands are playing and perfectly audible conversations with cute new wave boys happen simultaneously? I always wanted to go to one of those clubs. In real life, however, my hearing sucks and I get shirty if anyone tries to talk to me while the band is playing anyway.
At it's worst, I was reminded of the crap I listened to in the very early 90s (Gin Blossoms and such), with ham-fisted lyrics. Really, I think my biggest complaint is with the lyrics, and the singer's voice sometimes getting all irritatingly emotive.
Mostly, it reminded me of The Smithereens, which is never a bad thing.

Arctic Monkeys Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
What if social groups were like on "trendy" PBS and Nickelodeon kids shows, where every peer group includes a representative from every demographic?
If they were, the Mike Skinner of A Grand Don't Come For Free and the Arctic Monkeys would be buddies. This album has the same feel, but a different sound.
Let me try this again:
If there's a bar somewhere in England where a beautiful rich girl chats up Jarvis Cocker for a trip to the supermarket (I don't see anyone else there smiling.), the Arctic Monkeys are working on taking her moderately attractive, drunk-off-her-ass friend home.
And not quite succeeding.
And getting pissy about it.
And then forgetting all about her by closing time.
I would've bought this at the kickass Dayton record store Tiff took me to, but I already had the library's copy in my new white purse and would've felt silly with 2.

The Deathray Davies The Kick and the Snare
Continuing the Smithereens, Son of Nuggets, etc. trend, I was a bit reminded of that with this record, too. Mostly the song "In Circles" felt a bit like "Cigarette", which is a damn fine song.
This is much more power-poppy, though--also a good thing. Actually, a great thing.
Isn't it always the way, that when you buy one new cd and one used cd, you like the used one better?

My astrologist has read my horoscope, he's read DeMille's horoscope.

Am I the last person in the world to hear about Snakes on a Plane?
I absolutely LOVE this; it's hiLARious. And you know you think it's funny, too: There are snakes. On a plane. And Sam Jackson has to kick their ass.
Fucking awesome. And either Kenan or Kel (the one on SNL now) is in it, which is a plus.
Also kind of reminds me of Brain Candy: "It's a pill that gives worms to exgirlfriends."
Really, if you don't think this is funny, why are you even here? I can't imagine anything else I say is entertaining you if you don't like that.
Maybe this is more to yunz liking. (Props to Tiff for the link.)
I really have only one complaint with Snakes on a Plane: the release date of August 18. This is quite possibly the quintessential $2 theater movie. Mid-August is when I start going to see any damn crap at the cheap theater, to be all air-conditioned and entertained. Hell, I dragged Andy to Enough (starring JLo!) AND Van Helsing.
Dammit, I want to see Snakes on a Plane in a theater and I want to pay $2.50 for it and I want it to be on, like, the hottest day of the year.
Life is so unfair.
--Oh god, storytime just started singing "If you're happy and you know it."--
In more respectable movie news, I saw V for Vendetta and Brokeback Mountain this weekend. And discussed the awesomeness of the upcoming Stick It with a patron (okay, so maybe that's less than respectable). And realized that, as Da Vinci Code trailers get a wider and wider release, our holds list for the books/audiobooks is just going to get longer and longer.
Which leads me to this: who agrees with me 'n' Tiff that the Da Vinci Code teaser trailer was, like, the worst teaser trailer ever? Cracks in the oil paint? So freakin' lame.
Other trailer news: I had a complete geek-lapse and expected to see an XMen 3 trailer in front of V for Vendetta; new Pirates of the Caribbean looks awesome; was I the only person who saw the Superman teaser last year (in front of Batman Begins, I think) and thought, "damn--I thought that was still in post-Nick-Cage-and-Tim-Burton purgatory;" I saw 2 movies this weekend with Poseidon trailers and they were different.
***
So, Jessy, how were those movies you saw this weekend?

I was pleasantly surprised by Brokeback Mountain. People just don't make enough quiet, simple love stories. I never felt manipulated, and the score did what movie music is supposed to do (John Williams, you ass, you hear that?) Obviously would have liked more Jake kissyfacing, but understand that it wasn't that kind of movie.
And who knew Princess Mia was actually good at subtlety and restraint?

Yeah, subtlety and restraint? Not a specialty of Natalie Portman's. She's the weirdest actress: I think she's really good at wordless scenes, especially really emotional ones (girl cries like a dream). Dialogue she can manage, as long as George Lucas isn't directing and Anakin (child or adult version) isn't involved. But she really can't hold a monologue. At all.
To the point where I wonder if maybe she should become a mime, or if I should build a time machine and send her back to be Clara Bow's costar or something. She does have a bit of a Louise Brooks look about her.
I did like the movie, though. I got totally caught up in the story and everything.
And is there anything Hugo Weaving CAN'T do?

My job is funner than your job.

I just love Brent Hartinger to bits.
The central premise of Geography Club (a bunch of kids want to form a gay-straight alliance at their school, but are kinda afraid to, so they name in the one thing they know NO ONE will be interested in: a geography club) is funny as hell, but the book is all sweet and stuff.
(and ends the way I thought Rainbow Boys should have ended, incidentally)
When Geography Club was getting all banned for some bullshit cover reason*, there wasn't just fighting, there was mocking too.
And you know I love a good mockery.
The sequel to Geography Club, The Order of the Poison Oak, is also the only book that's caused me to say, out loud, to the book, "He's a ho!" And I think that's a good thing.
In fact, my only complaint with Brent Hartinger is that the pacing of his newest book (Grand & Humble), combined with my reading speed, meant that I got to the end of page 175, the biggest cliff hanger in the book, looked at the clock, and realized I had to go back to work right then. I can blame him for this, right?
It's such a good book. All thriller-y and suspenseful, but funny too. And I really like the design of the cover and chapter beginnings.
This is what it looks like:


*"...Superintendent Patti Banks, who earlier had removed “Geography Club” from the high school and Curtis Junior High out of concerns it could influence students to meet strangers through the Internet."

Your degree is showing.

(If you want to see Munich and be surprised, maybe you should come back some other day. I've included a pretty Elizabeth Peyton picture so you don't accidentally read anything. Aren't I nice?)



I turned the radio off this morning when the NPR Olympics coverage turned to 1972 and Munich. I didn't turn it off because of my oft-repeated hatred of the Olympics, or a particular distaste for tales of Steve Prefontaine translating German.
I turned it off because I couldn't get scenes from the movie out of my head. I don't like that, while people were talking about real people who had died violent deaths, I was seeing actors and Karo syrup. There's something really disrespectful about that to me.
I'm not a squeamish girl, and I'm not an anti-movie/tv violence girl. Hell, you could even go so far as to say I enjoy a good gory movie. But I just don't see why a movie about actual events and real people, directed by a well-respected guy, should seem so gratuitous to a girl like me. We know that theirs was an awful death; anyone seeing the movie at least knows this basic fact. I don't need crumpling faces and spattering blood to tell me.
And that seems to be the difference to me: if I'm watching some crap horror exploitation movie (or even a good horror exploitation movie), blood and guts are part and parcel. If I'm watching Oscar bait, they're unexpected and, to my mind, unnecessary.
It feels like lazy filmmaking. And yes, I know I don't like Spielberg to begin with, but this is why. I don't like it when I can tell my emotions are being orchestrated. If I'm watching a movie, I don't want to be pulled out of it with a thought like, "I'm supposed to be sad here," or "I guess I'm supposed to like this guy."
This is true for me whether or not I am sad, whether or not I do like that guy.
This is also why I think John Williams is a hack.
And it's also sort of related to why I've always avoided the 9-11 footage. I don't need to see bodies falling from buildings to feel the tragedy of bodies falling from buildings.
I guess I also do believe that we can be desensitized to some images, and I don't want that for myself.

I would also rather not have bloody naked dead-and-dying women in my Oscar bait. Particularly when said Oscar bait also includes married "love-making" scenes with fully clothed women. I know it's almost too easy for a girl like me to make the misogyny leap, but let me just repeat myself:
The women we saw naked were dead or mortally wounded and bloody.
The camera lingered on one particular naked dead woman.
The loving wife character was always, even during sex, fully clothed.

punk ass snow gnomes

Saturday afternoon work boredom = cleaning my email outbox.
I don't remember the context of the titular phrase at all, so don't bother asking. It was an email to Tiff, so it probably didn't make that much sense at the time, either.
***
Okay, so I read "The Gospel According to Larry", which is basically Adbusters in novel form, so I'm reading the sequel, where he runs for president in a not-un-Nader-like move. Mostly somewhat irritating, esp how Larry's still in love with his unrequited HS best friend (who's basically a normal girl with radical views) while he's got this rockin' new gf (who's basically us, but also doesn't speak on Mondays, for some kind of protest--see why this book is annoying?). So anyway, there's this one thing that I don't think is supposed to be funny so much as point out how different Beth and Janine (new girl, of course, has the better name as well) are, but I was cracking up. Like, Sars cracking up. Janine puts on her fake fur coat to leave, and in a footnote we're told that she's thrown red paint on her fake fur coat, in a jokey reference to PETA. Now, why didn't I ever think of that!?!?
***
"Julio, excited yet relaxed, grinned back and played like he was Kenny G."
Couch is in 5 piece, not 500. Progress!
***
So are you my neighbor now, or what?
If you can fake a British accent, you can be my neighbour.
If you're Natalie Imbrulia, you can be on Neighbours.
***
Also, Puff is super-fucking-awesome. Did I mention that it takes place around Boston in the 70s? During a snow storm? And it's about 2 stoner brothers who masquerade as Red Cross dealies to get to the last available bag of pot in town? I highly recommend!
***
OK, so I was totally internally mocking your whole shorts thing (sorry, sweetie), but then I found myself thinking about a picnic this morning, and, in my picnic fantasy, I was wearing chucks and shorts of that very-now length. And possibly my tube top, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.
***
I had the best spring weekend. Most of it involved sitting on my balcony and popsicles (the red white and blue kind), but also a library book sale ($2 for a grocery bag o' books, including classics such as A Day at LBJ Ranch and a book on mind-altering drugs from 1968 with an amazing cover) and Sin City.
***
step 1: ask to be their friendster
step 2: once you've amassed several possible boys, send out a bulletin on one of the following subjects: beer, comic books, or whether or not boys actually find Paris Hilton attractive. Conversation ensues, force a meeting, and Bob's your uncle: makin' out.
***
My favorite thing about Barely Legal (the print version, at least) is the text: so clearly designed for shifty, barely employed 40 year olds who live next door to 9th graders. My absolute favorite ridiculous porn photo (have I told you this story yet?) comes from my good ol' assfaced gay xroomie Ken, who used to read Barely Legal style magazines despite being barely legal himself. There was a picture of a young man in pj pants, standing next to a breakfast table, all laid out with a bowl of brightly colored cereal. Normal, right? Yeah, but how many guys do you know who stand next to their cereal with their dick hanging out?
***
Oh! I was driving to Target the other day and I heard, I think, Spacehog on the radio. They did that "In the Meantime" song, or whatever it was called, no? I couldn't believe it. I laughed and laughed.
***
Didja notice my MySpace Galaxie 500-related name change? You know it's summer when I'm lieing (I fucking hate trying to spell that word) around listening to Dean sing about breaking shit, being fired, and/or his crotch.
***
So, is it so wrong that I'm still attracted to Ben McKenzie, mustache and all?
***
"Do you have, uh, one a them sheets, um, where like the dates of the clubs are?"
"You mean a calendar? They're over there."
***
That's good. I'm glad you got your money, and didn't have to resort to singing ODB at your boss.
***
Jeff Buckley's cover of "Hallelujah" is playing on my internet radio thing right now. I do so love that song, but I was a bit confused, b/c I thought I had hit play on the Motown station.
***
He looks so much older...and kinda scary. Like the professor whose classes you skipped, and then you ran into at the liquor store and he yelled at you in front of the cheap whiskey. Or you hid behind the wine display to avoid him.
Also kind of like the poet guy in Auntie Mame. I was trying to find a picture online, but couldn't.
***
He looks like the bad guy in an MST3K movie with that beard. Like he should have some half-assed "British" accent.
Ello, ow are ooo?
***

so you say you like my shirt

This might be my new favorite YA book quote:

My heart was doing a happy leap, prancing around in a meadow of flowers, tra la la, without my permission. His dog's name was Rocket. I liked astronomy. It was that thing you do when you first fall in love. Where you think you must be soul mates because you each get hungry at lunch time and both blink when a large object is thrown your way.

It's from Wild Roses by Deb Caletti.

When I first read the book, I meant to mark that quote, but of course I didn't. I always wind up searching through books, desperate to find a quote, a fact, a line. I used to do this all the damn time in school. Writing a paper, there was always The Perfect Line/Point/Fact. I used to call up Meleah, or Tiff at the radio station (I seemed to pull a lot of all-nighters when she was doing her late-night show) with questions like, "What's the name of the Russian guy who made the movie where he showed film of a guy with the exact same expression on his face, but with different things after the cut, like he was reacting to them, in order to talk about the language of editing?"

While I was looking for the above crush-quote, I found this great moment, too. Seasonally, I'm a bit late on this one, but maybe we'll all remember to use it come next December.

...and our old Nativity scene. Mom and I still liked to have fun with it by moving the figures around in what you could politely call "nontraditional positions." Mom's not very religious in any regular way. She called the Nativity "Christmas Town," as in What's happening in Christmas Town today? I'd wake up to find the camel in the manger, say, with Joseph chipping in with parenting duties out front, and then I'd move them around to surprise her the next day with everyone standing in a circle around the donkey. Several years ago, the scene acquired a large plastic dinosaur, and later, a miniature replica of the Statue of Liberty that Mom got when she played a festival in New York. The poor folks of Christmas Town ran from Godzilla one day, and the Statue of Liberty got to be a fourth wise man.

So, yeah, Wild Roses is a good, if wordy for YA, book. So is Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, another of Caletti's novels. Here's what the cover looks like:

Toothbrush! You came back!

Stuff I saw this year and liked a lot.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
I thought it was a good ending. Or middle--whatever. Made up for stupid little kid Annakin, even if Hayden and Natalie have the chemistry of wooden spoons.
I especially liked how the one robot had bronchitis, the way the robot elder guys looked like the things from The Dark Crystal, and the way I, coming back into a dark crowded theater from the bathroom, couldnt' find Jay and sat down next to some random family instead.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
I heart the Weasley twins. And Jarvis Cocker, even if he is all hairy. And Brendan Gleeson, even if he is all paranoid and twitchy. I think this was the best of the movies. Oh, and I suppose I should have talked about the book in the last post. Ooops. Kind of goes without saying though, doesn't it?

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
As a little kid, this was one of my favorite books. The first time I saw the Gene Wilder movie, I was sooooo disappointed and mad. If I had seen this version then, I think I would have been completely satisfied.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
I hope that Martin Freeman and I live happily ever after, he doesn't mind if I pepper him with questions and giddiness about this movie.
Of course, I also hope he doesn't mind that Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Stuart Murdoch live with us too, but that's another story.
I saw this with Lara, who never read any of the books but also enjoyed the movie immensely. One of these days, I might even get around to knitting Marvin for her, too.

Batman Begins
Aw yeah.
Total miscasting of Katie Holmes though.

Narnia
YaY!
But weird to see on a screen a story that's been in my head for almost 20 years now.

Another book:
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is one of the handful of adult books I read this year. I loved this book. It reminded me of The Tin Drum and "Teddy" the Salinger short story, but it was completely its own book. I was impressed with so many things about this one. The storytelling was wonderful, and the added pictures and typography tricks weren't cheesy or gimmicky at all, I thought.