Zombie Spaceship Wasteland Ballet Cupcakes

I'm stuck at home for the second day in a row with a migraine. Yesterday it was so bad that I spent a large part of the day just laying on the floor. There should be a second clause in that sentence, like, "laying on the floor... reading a book" or "laying on the floor... thinking of recipes." But what no one tells you is that above all, maybe even more than being wretchedly painful, migraines are unbelievably boring. The pain keeps you from doing anything: reading (no concentration), watching TV (too bright and loud), eating (too nauseated), even sleeping, SLEEPING! all of those things are out of the question.

Today is a little bit better--obviously, I'm blogging--but there are still a lot of other things I'd rather be doing. I would actually rather be at work right now than spending another minute laying on the floor with a pillow over my head. Oh, there it is, I found my other clause! "...With a pillow over my head."

Anyway: I got on here to write a couple of book reviews, and I think, for the first time ever, a movie review! I can't promise that the products of my fever-adled brain will be worth reading, but I have to do something besides stare at the insides of my eyelids.

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland

By Patton Oswalt

It makes me sad that most people only know Patton Oswalt as the voice of Remy from Ratatouille or that second-string character from King of Queens (yeah, that). He deserves more recognition if not just because he's disgustingly, crushingly funny, and might be the only person in L.A. who is a genuinely nice person, then because he also speaks to the inner core of my nerd soul. I don't want to say that this book is for book-nerds and sci-fi dorks and people who are still teenagers inside--but I have no real proof that it's not. Its best chapters are the ones that firmly grip this demographic and don't let go.  He mentions Richard Brautigan on the first page. He has a transcendent experience while reading The Man in the High Castle and listening to R.E.M. He asks, which are you? A Zombie, a Spaceship, or a Wasteland? If you don't already have some tiny idea or are not the least bit curious this is probably not the book for you.

In case you wondered, I'm a wasteland. I chose to live in a town with 300 people (can I go back?) and my favorite types of books and movies are ones like The Stand and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome where there are no people and we just start over.

I would recommend this book to: Kacie, and fans of Harlan Ellison.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

By Ransom Riggs

By all means, judge this book by its cover.  If ever a book made a case for the existence of a physical book as an artifact, this one does.  The hard cover edition of this book is beautiful, and it is filled with beautiful black and white photos that are an essential part of the story.

Many contemporary novels are carried away by detailed descriptions of characters without a lot of plot--which has its time and place but can be tiring.  It seems like you've got to go to the YA section to find a novel that has both.  Harry Potter, The Hunger Games... if an "adult" novel has a plot, it gets filed under "genre fiction." But that is neither here nor there. This book has both interesting--though maybe not the deepest--characters and a swift-moving plot. The writing style won't necessarily win any awards, but what it lacks in poetry, it makes up in being entertaining and full-bodied. The author creates a rich and believable alternate world that you just fall into. It's a satisfying book.

I would recommend this book to: Jessica R. and definitely, definitely Amber, and you'll know why once you read it.

The Red Shoes (1948)

Dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

I hadn't heard of this film until about three weeks ago, when it just started popping up everywhere. It was mentioned in two books I read, on a film app I have and on a website I'm into. Fate.

Have you ever been to a real ballet? I haven't been since I saw The Nutcracker when I was about ten. Did you see Black Swan? Of course you did, that shit was crazy.

This film is an obvious precursor to Black Swan--not just because of the ballet but because of its strange psychological tension--but unlike Black Swan it does a better job of balancing darkness and light. It clearly influenced other films like Singin' in the Rain as well, and whereas the long dance scene in Singin' in the Rain is tedious and awful (I said it), the long ballet sequence in this film is exquisite.  I'm not particularly into old films--my attention span is short and I think they laugh at stupid things--but I can understand why this film has been called the best dance movie of all time. I'm not sure I'm prepared to call it that (Flashdance? Anyone? Crickets? Just kidding.), but I'm definitely prepared to recommend this.

IN THE EVENT OF A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

Just so you know, our apartment would be the perfect stronghold in the event of a zombie apocalypse.

I was thinking about this the other night and have decided that really, for the amount of rent we pay, you can't beat this level of zombie-security. Normally I wouldn't say that about a garden-level apartment, but in this case I think it's true.

Item: All of our doors and windows are barred, heavily. And our doors are made of that weird, shatter-proof Plexiglas which is impenetrable to the thumping of undead heads/loosely gripped fists.

Item: Despite being at garden level, I feel like we're fairly inconspicuous. When was the last time you saw a zombie get down on its knees and investigate something? Never. That's when. Most of our windows are behind shrubs which make it easy for us to see out, but difficult for the unobservant (read: the undead) to see in with their beady little eyes.

Item: In the event of a long stake out, we have a fireplace for heat and plenty of room to store supplies (maybe I should start stocking up?). Plenty of reading materials. But no shotgun--this is D.C. one of my neighbors is bound to have one.

Item: The apartment does have three entrances. The front is moderately conspicuous to the street, the other two are well-hidden. The side door leads to a small patio which is sunk into the ground and surrounded by a high railing and shrubs, good for getting out if needed, unlikely that any zombies would climb/fall over--and if they did they'd be trapped on the patio and easily dispensed of. The back door leads to a locked/enclosed courtyard which all of the apartments in the building share. Assuming that none of the neighbors have been taken by the desire to gnaw our flesh (which we obviously can't) this is a great way to get onto the roof via the fire escapes, get the lay of the land, throw Molotov cocktails, sharp-shoot (there's also a second-level terrace on the front of the building that would be good for this, assuming zombies don't excel at climbing), take out the trash, and smoke cigars (which there's no reason not to do in a Zombie Apocalypse).

Item: Our apartment is 4-6 blocks (don't quote me on that) from two different grocery stores, a hardware store, and a farmer's market (of limited use a few days after the electricity goes off). If one is brave and well-armed enough to go outside, these are useful sources of supplies and magazines.

Also, there are the Marine Barracks about 12 blocks away which probably have swords and maybe a hummer with the keys in it. If they doesn't have swords then the Marines need to change their advertising.

12 blocks in the other direction is the Library of Congress, which I would LOVE to run around in if it was totally uninhabited, but I would NOT love to be attacked and have my brain eaten by a congressional librarian in the darkened stacks because the irony is too much.

Conclusion: This is definitely the right apartment for the job. D.C. is probably one of the worst cities you could be in during a zombie apocalypse--a lot of people, a lot of traffic jamming the ways out, metros(!), already high panic quotient... ick. But I could totally have this apartment on lockdown and still make snacks.

I'm with Reasonable ------->

Saturday was a very exciting day. First of all, it was my dad's fiftieth birthday, or in his words, his 25th birthday times 2. I didn't get to spend it with him, which kills me, so I spent it doing all sorts of distracting things. The most nationally important of which being the joint Rally to Restore Sanity and to March Keep Fear Alive.

Can I just point out first of all that we're idiots because we live within walking distance of the Mall--we don't even have to take the metro--and we still didn't make it until exactly noon. Needless to say, by that point, it was challenging to find a place to stand as over 200,000 people had already shown up. But luckily we live behind the capitol so we were already at the front of the crowd when we showed up.

So. What the hell was the Rally to Restore Sanity? Based on the fact that it was mostly just a very long outdoor version of the Daily Show, I think it's main purpose was just to prove that there are more Liberals and just plain "normal" people than Glen Beck would like the world to believe, and that we outnumber the crazy-shouters by far. (That's right, I refuse to believe it's normal to be that angry all the time at everything.)

I know the first picture here does not quite convey the scale of this post-rally horde unleashing itself directly upon the city, but it stretches six blocks: from Constitution Ave. all the way to Chinatown, shoulder to shoulder. I've really never seen anything like it except for the inauguration, which was much colder and more somber (and did I mention colder?).

The Highlights:

1. Cat Stevens. The minute John Stewart introduced him, I started crying. I never thought I would hear him perform live. And to be honest, I never expected to have to boo Stephen Colbert for ruining my hippie-Cat-Stevens-Peace-train-euphoria, but I was quite displeased by the sudden interruption of Ozzy Osborn (as much as I love him, he's no Yusuf Islam).

2. John Stewart's speech. It just makes me feel better knowing that at least one person in the media, even if he is a pseudo-comic pundit Comedy Central guy, feels the same way I do and has the power and balls to say so in front of the world. Even if the major news media don't bat an eye.

3. The guys from Myth Busters. Hear me out. 50% of their shtick was a failure, but it was sort of brilliant of them to try to conduct experiments with a crowd that big while they had them. Doing the wave with 200,000 people? That's kind of awesome. And then making them all jump at once to see if it registers on a seismometer? Even if it didn't work, it was neat (neat!) to hear that THUMP, and well, to see everyone cooperating (awwwwww).

4. The signs. People are so creative. Love it.

The lowlights:

1. Jeff Tweedy. No problem with Mavis Staples, but damn Jeff, way to bring everyone the hell down. Terrible. I actually preferred Kid Rock. Kid. Rock.

2. Not being able to see anything but people's heads--anywhere in the city. (And the guy in front of me smelled like he drank a bottle of vodka and then sweat it all out on his sweatshirt.) Amazingly, one of the drawbacks of "strength in numbers" is, as Sarte said that "hell is other people" (or at least it can be). That sounds awful, but consider this: Amazing three hour rally begins at 12 and ends at 3, many people arrive as early as 8:00 a.m. There are very few places to get food on the Mall, so what do these 200,000 people immediately do after the rally? They flood the restaurants. Tim and I went to our "secret" Chinese restaurant, which is usually empty, and the poor place was overwhelmed. It's usually so empty they don't even have a waiter--the host seats you, takes your order, brings your drink. The busboy brings your food. The host's wife brings your check. Now the dining room was full and the chef took our order 45 minutes after we sat down. The line was out the door.

But I have to say, I have never tasted such amazing sushi in my life. I will call it freedom sushi. After the rally and the awesomeness of being around people who just want everyone to be polite... we too were hungry and tired. And happy and hopeful. (But mostly hungry and tired--which is, I think, the point? When you're living you're own life, you're too busy doing that to be too insulted by how other people are living theirs.)

Stuck in the middle with... me.

I'm supposed to be doing homework right now. Or sleeping.

Those are pretty much my two allowable activities until the 13th of May.

But I feel like something has to be said about how completely odd it is to be living completely alone for the first time in my life, ever. Yes--this is just temporary, I'm completely surrounded by Tim's stuff, and someone is sharing all the bills, but it's very weird to be stocking a refrigerator for one. Even when I used to stay up at camp by myself, a billllllllion miles from everyone, I had the dogs, so that was less weird than this.

Here are the top five things that I like and dislike about this very new arrangement:

♥LIKES:

1. This bed is enormous. And I will sleep in the middle, kthnx.
2. Vegetables.
3. I find myself wandering around the city a lot, since no one is expecting me to be home. This means finding cool stores and meeting unusual people I would otherwise have rushed right past. Part of "wandering" means also just "attending"--as in, I told myself I would go to the volunteer orientation for 826DC, and instead of pretending like Tim needed me to help him watch TV, I actually went, and it was awesome.
4. I can watch whatever movie I want to, eat whatever flavor of ice cream I want to, and throw my kleenexes wherever I want to and no one can stop me. (That's right, Confessions-of-a-Shopaholic-Chunky-Monkey-On-the-Floor, whatchagonnadoaboutit?)
5. Ugh, this one actually kind of sucks: there's no division of the day between work-time and relax-time so all day is homework-time. It's helpful, but is it fun? Meh.

☠DISLIKES

1. I have to talk to Tim either over Skype (which just is not a high-quality communication tool), or wait until he calls me, because it's too expensive to call or text him. This means I'm texting lots of random people after class and asking them what they want for dinner, because that's a habit I can't fight. I feel like I have to write things down all day that I want to tell him and I'm so over it.
2. Four times I have thought someone was in my house, trying to kill me. Once, someone actually was in my house, but he was just trying to turn on the sprinklers.
3. I'm incapable of cooking for just one person, so my fridge is full of left-overs. Also, I hate any left-over older than 24 hours.
4. Every day is the same, except the two days when I have class. There is no such thing as the weekend. There is no spoon.
5. We were on the last level of World 7 of Super Mario Bros. Wii, one Boss Level away from World 8. I'm too retarded to go on by myself, which means I have to wait four months to get to World 8. No one else wants to play with me and anyway, we've come so far together I feel like it would be wrong to go on without him. UGH.

Also, because it's my blog and I do what I want, this is what I really want for my birthday and for my trip to Machu Picchu. :) I don't want to take my regular camera because I will drop it off a cliff and into a river, where it will be stolen by monkeys, but this camera is designed to withstand all of those things (except, I guess, the monkeys).

Oh, and I want the semester to be over and to go to Panama. Luckily, those two things are almost, almost in the bag.

The Book(s) of the Dead

I meant to post my special Halloween Edition Book Review on Halloween, but oddly, had a lot of things to do that day what with all the candy, and the costumes, and the candy, and the Halloween. If, like me, you're not quite over it yet (really, does Thanksgiving offer all that much to look forward to instead? They should reverse the order, put Thanksgiving in August so there's a nice steady build up through the end of the year...), then this might offer you something to hold on to. If you're sick of it, save this for next year and move on.

Anyway, this year I went for the Classics, Frankenstein and Dracula; and then a little search for lost souls on the side.

Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus
by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

I must first admit that the decision to read this book was not wholly mine, and that it was required for one of my classes. I tried to read Tim's untouched copy about two years ago and didn't make it through the introduction. That shouldn't color whether or not you decide to read this book though, it should only make you think carefully about which edition you buy. Mary Shelley made a number of changes to the text in her life, up to the point when she sold the copyright (for something insane like $37) and neither she nor anyone in her estate ever made another penny off of the book again. A good edition, like the Chicago edition (pictured above), shows the changes that she made, which are sometimes fairly significant. The nice thing about it though, is that if you're reading for enjoyment, you can largely ignore the little editorial bits, but the occasional footnotes actually help.

It seems as though everyone knows the story of Frankenstein, the monster made from human body parts who throws little blond girls down wells and is afraid of fire, etc. etc. However, as with anything usurped by Hollywood, what's been churned through the machine is only a shadow of the original work. You probably know that Frankenstein is not the monster, but the man who creates him (the monster has no name), but did you know that the Monster reads Paradise Lost, and Plutarch? That there is no Igor? That Victor Frankenstein begins to make a female monster, but realizes the monsters might have baby monsters and rips her body up and throws her into the sea?

Suffice to say that the book is not old hat. The story is nothing like what you've probably heard. And if, at the end, you don't want to throw Victor Frankenstein into the sea, I would be surprised. (Also, and I know this will thrill you nerds out there, the book is entirely epistolary. BAM! Now you have to read it.)

Who I would recommend this book to: my Dad, and Tim if he ever finishes The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Dracula
By Bram Stoker

"Sometimes I think we must all be mad and that we shall wake to sanity in straight-waistcoats." -Dr. Seward's Diary

Imagine, if you will, spending seven years researching Eastern Europe, vampire folklore, and madness, and then sitting down at a typewritter and spending three more years writing the 600 page classic that is Dracula. Again, if you've ever seen a movie about "Dracula," even Bram Stoker's Dracula, you can pretty much just throw that out the window. Again, the novel is written in the epistolary style, with letters, diary entries, news articles and other scraps and documents thrown in here and there. Here though, Dracula is pretty much exactly the bad news you think he is.

The brilliance of Dracula, the demon and the book, is his absence--how rarely one sees his face after the first few pages, and yet the effects of his evil are felt on every page as sickness and insanity spread like wildfire. Dracula is, in a lot of ways, an adventure story, an almost epic quest to rid the world of supreme evil, undertaken by a motley (and luckily very wealthy) crew of five men and at the center of it, one woman, whose chief virtue is that she "has the brain of a man." Whether or not you consider that a compliment, consider what Dr. Van Helsing says: that evil men can be conquered because, despite their cleverness, they have the minds of children.

Who I would recommend this book to: pretty much anyone. Really, I loved it. Also, it's a classic.

Spook, Science Tackles the Afterlife
By Mary Roach

About a year ago I reviewed Mary Roach's book, Stiff, which stuck in my mind not only because it's all about dead bodies and all of the weird things that people do and have done with them, but because while I was reading it in the GW Hospital Emergency room (don't ask), I read about how one of the founders of the GW Hospital was a convicted body snatcher who used to rob graves and do all sorts of unsavory things with the corpses. (How's that for a long sentence?)

Spook looks at all of the ways (wholesome and not-so-wholesome) which people have tried to use science to prove the existence of a soul, it's weight, color, texture, smell, shape, and whether or not their is badminton in the afterlife. It's a quick read for two reasons: 1) Roach's subjects and infinitely fascinating and 2) she's adept at seeing the just the right level of humor in situations where people either take themselves too seriously, or are dismissed outright (at a school where people learn how to be Mediums, for example). Roach gets to the bottom of all sorts of things you didn't know you wanted to know about, like the "21 grams" theory (21 grams being the supposed weight of a human soul), and children who remember their past lives.

For all the times when there is some kernel of real science hidden in these phenomena that makes you wonder, "what if?", there are 10 other times when it's just fun to laugh at crazy people.

Who I would recommend this book to: Jared, J-Darnutz (yes, I just called you that on my blog), and my mom.

True Stories

My graduate school has this really interesting thing where they try really hard to get everyone to be a cohesive group. They have a lot of happy hours and events all organized by this group called the EGSA, or the English Grad Student Association. This all seems like a really cool, healthy, non-English majory environment, the only problem is that somehow I have totally managed to avoid all interaction with these people, through no real intention of my own.

For instance, the main event of all this, the kicker, was a barbeque held at the Department Head's house the first week of school on the day, of course, that I was moving into my new apartment. In the normal world, missing something like that is not a big deal, however it has actually been pointed out to me by other EGS's that I wasn't there and that this is not acceptable. And only in a half-kidding sort of way.

The second issue is that somehow, I got into the two most unusual classes on the schedule, apparently. Not the content of the classes themselves, but the attendance. Every other class I've seen is replete with students, and I hear them talking about their classes in the library and in the grad lounge. However, I am the ONLY English grad student in one of my classes (trust me, it's obvious) and there are only seven of us in the other.

All of this build up to say that Tim and I finally tried to make it to one ESGA event on Friday , a Ghost Tour in Old Town Alexandria, so we could meet some of these elusive people. We were five minutes late getting to the meeting spot and not a soul was there (five minutes, people!?). We had no info about where everyone was going from there, but after overhearing someone on the phone mention a ghost tour we got a hint and hunted down the spot. They were long gone, but the tour organizers nicely let us onto the next tour without making us pay again.

I love ghost tours, but I will admit that the one in Dover, England, where a) a lot more people have actually died in Clifford's tower and b) our tour got chased by this manic duck that kept biting people, was a lot more exciting.

Anyway, we went 17 metro stops to meet a bunch of people who we never saw. They weren't at the cafe where they were supposed to meet afterward either. I know there are other grad students out there. I've just still never met them.

On the other hand, yesterday Tim and I went to AU because my History of the Book class read a graphic novel called Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel, and American had hosted a colloquium on her work that day. The colloquium ended with her giving a talk which was really entertaining and actually fairly amazing. She brought slides of her illustration process and of some of the photos she used to create a number of the illustrations in the book. She also brought slides of some of her favorite comics as a kid and of her own comic strip, Dykes to Watch out For.

The talk was funny, and enlightening, and sad too. My favorite authors to listen to are always the ones who are a little mystified by their own process as well, and who may not exactly know the answers to everyone's questions, but who still manage to tell you something about the book that you never, ever could possibly have gotten by just reading it, or by reading an interview or an article.

The book is a memoir about Bechdel's relationship with her dad, his sudden death, and the fact of his closeted homosexuality in relationship to her coming out. After she gave her talk, people asked questions (and I don't think a single person asked a question that wasn't a question, it was, in short, a miracle) and because she was so funny, someone asked if she was funny in her family and she said, "yeah. I was. My mom is funny and I think learned that from her. I loved to make my dad laugh, but it's not like that was hard, you know. He laughed at the road runner. Someone pointed out once that there's not a single picture in the book where my dad doesn't look very stern and serious, so... you know... ...it's not a true story."

I love that.