Sometimes there's poetry

I heard a great line today:

"It's like explaining Heaven to bears."

I'm going to steal it.

January, Forth!

Feels like I've been gone a month. The cold doesn't help. Would've liked to have a balmy return to work.

Where is everybody? I always forget to take Monday off. Returning to work on a Tuesday seems nicer to me. The train was still full though. On the upside, my Kindle worked like a dream. This large man decided to sit next to me squishing me up against the Metro window and my arms were immobilized making page turning difficult. With my new Kindle, all I needed was a finger. In my head, every time I 'turned a page' I yelled out, "BOOM!"

Things I miss about being on vacation:
1. Wearing the same flannel shirt and jogging pants for a week and half.

She makes me high

I'm making Lentil soup. Lynette is making macaroni and cheese. In this weather, these dishes are a drug. And we're enabling each other.

500 Days of Summer (See it if you like good movies)

I have finally viewed a movie about love that is truly about love. 500 Days of Summer is the most accurate portrayal of love and fate I have ever seen. This movie refreshingly abandons most Hollywood conventions (you'll know it when you see the the musical number in the middle, perfectly done). As the movie poster tagline reads, "This is not a love story. This is a story about love."

If you don't relate to this movie, then you haven't been through enough relationships. Especially, relationships that hurt and confuse and ultimately open your eyes.

500 Days of Summer is probably one of the top five movies of 2009 that no one will ever see. And you'll know why after you see it. I highly recommend it, but if you're looking for a typical movie about romance and love go find Reese Witherspoon or Cameron Diaz. If you want something real and poetic, look toward Zooey Deschanel and 500 Days of Summer.

Calvin and Hobbes: New Years Resolutions

E-Book Article from NPR

How E-Books Will Change Reading And Writing

by Lynn Neary

December 30, 2009

Listen to the Story

Morning Edition

Enlarge Ben Margot/AP

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos holds a Kindle e-book reader. Amazon reports that on Christmas Day, more customers bought Kindle e-books than physical books.

December 30, 2009

Ten years ago, few imagined that by decade's end, people would be reading novels on cell phones. A lot has changed in the book world.

"Over the last couple of years, I've really noticed if I sit down with a book, after a few paragraphs, I'll say, 'You know, where's the links? Where's the e-mail? Where's all the stuff going on?' " says writer Nicholas Carr. "And it's kind of sad."

Carr says he's thought of himself as a serious reader all his life, but in an article in The Atlantic, he argued that the Internet is training us to read in a distracted and disjointed way. But does that mean writers will have to change the way they write to capture the attention of an audience accustomed to this new way of reading? Carr thinks the answer is yes, and he looks to the past to make his point.

"When printed books first became popular, thanks to Gutenberg's press, you saw this great expansion of eloquence and experimentation," says Carr. "All of which came out of the fact that here was a technology that encouraged people to read deeply, with great concentration and focus. And as we move to the new technology of the screen ... it has a very different effect, an almost opposite effect, and you will see a retreat from the sophistication and eloquence that characterized the printed page."

As digital platforms proliferate, writers are trying to figure out how to use them. Novelist Rick Moody recently wrote a story on the social networking site Twitter. Moody says he got intrigued by the idea of writing in abbreviated form to fit within the 140-character limitations of each Twitter post.

"I began to see that trying to write within this tiny little frame, 140 characters, was kind of like trying to write haiku. It's very poetical in its compaction, and it kind of got under my skin, and I kept thinking, 'Wouldn't it be fun to try and work with this?' " Moody says.

His flirtation with Twitter was not entirely successful. The delivery of the story went awry, and some industry insiders were bombarded with repetitive tweets. Still, Moody doesn't regret the experiment. But he does have doubts about Twitter's literary potential.

"It forced me to try to imply more narrative than I could actually include in the piece, because I was so stuck in this little box. It's hard to have dialogue between characters in the confines of the Twitter box," Moody says. "That was all fun. Whether I think Twitter is going to be a great vehicle for fiction, I'd say no."

A lot of writers are trying their hand at Twitter books — both on the Web and in print — but Time magazine book reviewer Lev Grossman thinks it's a passing fad. Asked what might have some staying power, Grossman suggests the cell phone novel. Written on cell phones and meant to be read on them, many of these books are best-sellers in Japan. The authors are usually young women, and romance is the main theme.

"They tend to be narratively very propulsive, [and] not very interested in style and beautiful language," Grossman says. "There tends to be a lot of drama and melodrama, sex and violence. They grab your attention, and they don't really let it go."

Apart from Twitter books and cell phone novels, Grossman, who is also a novelist, says the real challenge for writers is electronic-book readers like the Kindle. He says the increasingly popular devices force people to read books in a different way.

"They scroll and scroll and scroll. You don't have this business of handling pages and turning them and savoring them." Grossman says that particular function of the e-book leads to a certain kind of reading and writing: "Very forward moving, very fast narrative ... and likewise you don't tend to linger on the language. When you are seeing a word or a sentence on the screen, you tend to go through it, you extract the data, and you move on."

Grossman thinks that tendency not to linger on the language also affects the way people react to a book when they are deciding whether to buy it: More purchases will be based on brief excerpts.

"It will be incumbent on novelists to hook readers right away," says Grossman. "You won't be allowed to do a kind of tone poem overture, you're going to want to have blood on the wall by the end of the second paragraph. And I think that's something writers will have to adapt to, and the challenge will be to use this powerfully narrative form, this pulpy kind of mode, to say important things."

Grossman, Moody and Carr all believe that traditional books will still be around for a long time, and that some of the changes that may occur in writing will be more evolutionary than revolutionary. But it's hard to know, says Carr, whether traditional books — and the people who read and write them — will have much influence on the culture in the future.

"The real question is," wonders Carr, "is that segment of the population going to just dwindle and be on the periphery of the culture rather than at the center, which is where printed books have stood for centuries now?"

Perhaps we'll have to wait another 10 years to find out.

Our Christmas Tree 2009

Movie Delivery System

I have fully accepted the way in which I watch movies nowadays and it ain't through Netflix. I quit them two weeks ago. For the last few months I have been renting my movies via Xbox 360 and PS3. Both consoles stream movies in HD instantly. Gone are the days where I have to wait AN ENTIRE DAY for a DVD to arrive in the mail (I'm being sarcastic, but still). One more reason it's good to be a gamer.

BTW, which one of you jerks forgot to tell me Terminator Salvation was a cool movie? I watched it today. I also watched 9, which was also very good. And last week Lynette and I watched Julie and Julia, which was also pretty good.

AVATAR (It's True What They Say)

Avatar is amazing.
Avatar is visually stunning.
Avatar is magnificent.
Avatar is expertly formulaic.
Avatar is wonderfully cheesy.

Mr. Cameron has done it again. I had my doubts, but after hearing review after review from friends and bloggers I decided I had to see it for myself. And I was blown away. Avatar is like every movie you've ever seen, and like no other movie you've ever seen. Avatar is a game-changer. In my lifetime, there have been few movies that actually shake things up in Hollywood. Few movies become figurative guideposts for every movie that comes after. Avatar is one of those movies.

But, let me reiterate what everyone has been saying: The story is cheesy, the story is predictable, the story is not unique. But, when you saw Star Wars for the first time did you ever doubt that Luke would eventually defeat Darth Vader and the Empire?

Yes, I mentioned Star Wars in my humble review of Avatar. Go see it! In 3-D!

NOTE: It's three hours long. So make sure you tinkle before it starts.

Goal

I always thought that when I was old enough I'd surely be driving a motorcycle with a sidecar. Fortunately, I still want to. Someday I will.

String Theory

Click to see it bigger

"Did you get everything you wanted for Christmas?"

"Almost."

I don't know what your problem is, but I am sad to see Christmas go. In this house, 2009 couldn't come to an end quicker. These last few days at home have been heavenly.

BTW, I got EVERYTHING I wanted for Christmas. And then some.

Top Things That Made My Christmas Kick Ass This Year:

1. Lynette (without her I'm nothing)
2. Snow (haven't had a white Christmas in these parts since we lived here)
3. Watching Leia open presents (as if she knows it's x-mas)
4. Homemade whipped cream (I made it)
5. Drinking coffee in the middle of the afternoon
6. Sorry (the board game)
7. Our Christmas tree (always stalwart and comforting)
8. Andes Candies (like a drug those things are)
9. Coffee (said twice on purpose)

She's With Santa Now

Lynette's ancient silver dollar fish died on Christmas Day. It was sad because this fish moved with us from Illinois in 2001. She had to have been over ten years old.

Jimmy Fallon and The Muppets!

Fozzie rules!

Kim Peek

The inspiration behind Rain Man died last week. Very sad news. Here is part of a wonderful documentary about his life:



The rest of the film: LINK

Mt. 15th Street

Slipped on some ice this morning, but didn't fall. That's when I realized that I wasn't impervious to being "Falling Man" on the street. Trust me when I say the rest of my walk to work was a cautious one. And then each intersection had fifteen foot high mountains of ice and snow on all four corners. Good thing I brought a grappling hook to work with me this morning. One man nearly fell, but I grabbed him with one hand just in time. And my beard was had those cool movie icicles hanging from it when I got to my cubicle.

A group is forming to leave the building and make their way out of the city, but I'm trying to convince them that it would be safer if we stayed put. Plus, there's wolves out there, I think. My dad Dennis Quaid will be here soon - I can feel it.

Under Great White Northern Lights

Pardon my swears, but I FUCKING LOVE the White Stripes. I can't wait to see this:

Ebert's List

Because I grew up reading and watching Roger Ebert and generally agree with him, here's his list of 2009's best films:
LINK

The White Fluffy Mystery

Sixteen inches of snow.

As of right now the above ground Metro stations are closed. Will I be going to work tomorrow?

Mono vs. Stereo

I don't know who this guy is, but his review of the Beatles MONO box set is pretty funny.



NOTE: I bought the stereo version and it's amazing, so...