Wuthering Heights

(I thought I'd blogged about this already, but apparently I forgot.)
For the end of last term, my AP Lit class read Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. And all I can say, is that I wish that that woman had written much more before she died. The book was fast-paced for a book written over a century ago, much faster than those of her sisters as well as others she is often compared with, such as Jane Austen.
I really enjoyed the book itself. It had a lot of gothic symbolism and there were tons and tons of character things that were great and essential. The plot was really windy and twisted and I was glad we did a acting-out of it before we read the book, or else I'd have been terribly confused (maybe, maybe not...).
All in all, I really liked the book. It belongs on my top list of classics that I enjoyed reading.
(I'd write more, but I really don't feel like it. I'm so lazy.)

The Twilight movie!

So just like millions of other girls my age, the highlight of my week thus far has been the seeing of the new Twilight movie. I went in with mediocre expectations, really expecting only to laugh most of the way through at the cheesy-ness of many of the lines. Some things work well in books and horribly in a movie; there was plenty of evidence of this. (Example: The lion/lamb conversation. Cute in the book, corny in the movie.)

Overall, I was pleased with the movie. It was cute and fluffy and the romance was slow-moving and then all of the sudden it was deep, passionate, never-ending love. But there were many things that were just... awkward or strange to watch. Such as the romantic scenes, the angry scenes, the facial expression scenes... but really, how can these people be expected to know how to be vampires? They're only human.

I'd give this movie about 3.5 stars. I spent half of the time whispering to my friend jokes about the movie, repeating certain lines and adding my own extras or making fun of the movie in general. But that was what made the experience all the more enjoyable, to be perfectly honest.

If you want to go see this movie, don't expect a masterpiece. Just enjoy the mindless, strange romantic-osity and don't think to hard about what they're saying, because sometimes it's just a "wtf?" or "aaaawkward" moment.

Wisdom teeth... GONE!

I got my wisdom teeth out yesterday. And despite the anxiety and how gross it would be and all the preparations I made for pain, discomfort and drug-induced sleepiness, I feel just fine. The surgery went great, although I apparently told the nurse when I was "coming to" all the food and Disney DVDs I had waiting for me at home. I do not remember that at all. I only remember saying that I felt intoxicated and that my arms were heavy. Then the nurse helped me walk to the van and my dad helped me into the van. I don't remember how we got to the pharmacy, but we did. And then my dad helped me out of the van and down the stairs, where I promptly went pee and started to come back upstairs but was told to go back down and lie down. I wanted a drink of water, apparently forgetting I had inches of gauze in mouth, making drinking impossible.

I stopped bleeding regularly around 3:00 - 4:30. In the morning, I was bleeding so much that the gauze was full and I had to spit every minute or so into a towl for an hour. But now the only time I bleed at all is after I eat a lot (which would be about 2 puddings cups, and I only eat one at a time) or laugh really loud (like when I was watching Scrubs last night).

Waking up this morning, I'm a little stiff and sore in the mouth area. But I haven't taken any pain killers or ibuprofen sine 11:00 pm yesterday. I will probably ice my face a bit and maybe take some ibuprofren afterwards. But this whole recovery thing is pretty easy and vaguely painless. I'm pretty used to mouth pain, having had braces for 3 years (thank God those are gone...) and having only lost 6 teeth on my own - the rest (plus two permanent teeth) were pulled by my dentist.

I have four days to recover and I think I'll be totally fine when I go back to school Monday. This time that I get alone and off work this weekend will be used to revise my script for our AP Lit paper and also to do plenty of work on my NaNoWriMo project. It's a story I started in the summer and I'm adding 50,000 to the 25,531 I already have. I've made a lot of progress. In 6 days, I wrote 13,679 words. Let's keep it going, right?

Okay, this is horribly long and has nothing to do with books or movies that I've watched. (I watched The Little Mermaid, Hercules Mulan and Casper yesterday and am reading Wuthering Heights for AP Lit. It's good, I like it.)

Oh, and I'm hungry. Pudding and jello are good, but not as filling as I'd like. But once done with one, I'm too sore to eat a second. Hmmph. But I get mashed potatoes and soup today, so hopefully that will be a little more satisfying.

Ahh, November...

November. What a great month.

It's National Novel Writing Month. This year, I am continuing a story I began this summer. It's historical fiction, WWII from a woman's American homefront perspective. I've done a lot of work with timelines and plot planning and put 25,531 words into it in July. So far, I've added 9,913. Hopefully, by the end of the month, I will have 75,000 words and a finished novel that I can edit and be happy with. Check out my profile!

It is also a time for freak nature occurences. Last week, it was 40 degrees. This week, it's 70. Not that I'm complaining. Plus, thanks to daylight saving time, it is light out when I go to school, even though it sort of sucks that it gets dark between 5:00 and 5:30.

The only thing that sucks this month is the cumulation of long-term projects I should have started and finished weeks ago instead of leaving to the last week. And I have to get my wisdom teeth out in two days, which sucks. But at least it will be over with.



PS: Happy voting day!
And happy We Have a Black President Named Barack Obama day!

Requiem for a Dream

This weekend, I downloaded the soundtrack to the film Requiem for a Dream. It's a gorgeous soundtrack, with a lot of repetitive themes. But it inspired me to rewatch this horrifically beautiful movie as well.

First of all, the movie has distinct, symbolic style. The movie all about addiction. Mostly to drugs, but also to other things we may not even consider like food or television. There are close-ups to the pills that Sara Goldfarb takes, as prescribed by her doctor (but are actually amphetamines), the drugs that Harry, Marion and Tyrone are taking, and their eyes dialating as the drugs take effect. This is to symbolize that the drugs fill their whole world, just as they fill the screen. There are many other things that may seem stylistic in the filming of the movie but are actually symbolic.

The film is quite explicit, which cannot be denied. There is drug use and it's effects, such as the grossly infected arm of Harry Goldfarb. There is murder and prostitution and the terror of a mental hospital, accentutated by the loud warning bells heard in the soundtrack. The music is used continuously to make sure you know that the film isn't going toward a white light at the end of the tunnel. There is the "overture" theme, which is classic for movie trailers. Everytime I hear it, I think of Sara Goldfarb cleaning her apartment in a time progression scene where the camera moves slowly from right to left and she moves in fast-forward from room to room, cleaning every surface. Then there is the "dreaming" theme and the "fear and tension" theme. There is also the "party" theme, which is used in either party situations or high tension situations (like the heroin run on the supermarket).

This movie is not for the weak of heart. There is nothing to keep you away from seeing what they feel. You see the blood splatter on Tyrone's face. You see Sara's fearful eyes when they hook her up for electroshock therapy. You can see the pain in Harry's face as his arm becomes infected. You can see the breaking of Marion's heart as she realizes what she must do for her next fix. And you watch all their hopes and dreams crumble, destroyed by the harshness of addiction and reality.

This movie is haunting, beautiful, compelling and explicit. I find it absolutely facinating and once I've watched the ending, I want to start it all over. You always hope something will change, but nothing does.

If you care to watch the film, you can watch it in its entirity on Hulu HERE.

1984 (George Orwell)

So for my last small group book, I decided to read 1984, the classic novel by George Owell. I read Animal Farm in 10th grade and was anticipating something similar - political, symbolic and based in some other universe of reality.

And I was not let down.

1984 takes place in George Orwell's future (which is actually 24 years behind our present day) in a place called Oceania. Oceania is Britain, parts of Europe, parts of North America, Pacific islands and countries and Africa. It's a jumble of countries that are watched by the ever-present Big Brother and controlled by strict deprevation of goods (or just quality goods) and a systematic brainwashing to give yourself to the love of Big Brother and the hate of the other two regions of the world, Eastasia and Eurasia. The main character is Winston Smith. He's an older guy and he's questioning the reality and the methodology of Oceania. He and another "comrade," Julia, engage in a loving affair, which is highly against Big Brother's rules.

The first two-thirds of the book are pleasant. They give you hope that Winston and Julia will rock Big Brother and defy the government. They are secretly meeting and making love. But the last third of the book completely threw me off guard. The whole tone of the book went from hopeful to dreadful in about one sentence. Winston Smith finds himself in the Ministry of Love, which is actually where they put "thought criminals" to torture and punish them... and rehabilitate them to love Big Brother. And then they kill them.

The last third of the book goes by in a whirl. It completely took me by surprise. You can tell Orwell is playing around with his questions about perception, reality, control and power. There are mind games, brutality and logical-illogic galore to be found in these last chapters. And an ending that makes you realize that there is no way to escape Big Brother.

Quad Cities Marathon

On Sunday, I ran my first half-marathon in the Quad Cities. I finished in 2 hours and 18 minutes. It was really hard after about 10 miles but it was really fun. There were all kinds of people there and it was just a good time, even though I was whining and tired for the last 30 minutes.

I'm already excited for my next half marathon in Disney World... and I have to wait until January! But between then and now I will have lots of opportunities to play around with different ways to regain energy after 10 miles, which I didn't do on Sunday because I didn't want to risk throwing up or feeling sick.

Now I am watching Ghost Hunters and creeping myself out.

Oh man...

I went to the grocery store because I needed treats for my AP Statistics class. I am also sick, so I got a bag of lemon drops, in addition to my 2 packages of Chips Ahoy cookies. I don't think the (really attractive) cashier believed me when I said I stayed home sick today to make sure I am 100% for my big race on Sunday. But he told me to feel better anyhow.

"Lucy, remember, the smell of that fall..."

I have a sore throat. Which sucks, since I'm running a half marathon THIS SUNDAY.
(I am so excited!)

I am getting my 12 year molars finally. They're just 5 years too late for the party in my mouth.
And soon my wisdom teeth will be leaving me. November 6th. It seems terrifying.

I wish summer could come back. But I am really enjoying fall so far. The trees are changing and the air is getting cooler and crisper and it reminds me of all my favorite books. I've been chewing my favorite autumn gum and I want to read House of Leaves again because this weather reminds me of the days I spent absorbing that book. It is starting to smell like autumn and it reminds me of being a little kid - and somehow I'm just as excited for this year of school and the next four as I was when I first started going 12 years ago.

Today, an acceptance letter came from Wartburg. One down, three to go...

The Likeness (Tana French) + Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)

I just finished two books within days of each other so they both go in one blog. Okay. The first I want to talk about is The Likeness, because I liked it more than I liked Frankenstein.

The Likeness is sort of a sequel to another book I read this summer, In the Woods, but not really. Though Operation Vestal from In the Woods is mentioned a half dozen times, this book can easily stand alone. It is about Cassie Maddox, a main character from French's debut novel, and a girl who looks just like her who has been murdered. She then returns back to her undercover days and lives this young woman's life, living with her roommates and trying to help solve the case from the inside. The first 400 or so pages are a steady and mounting toward the climax. The last 66 page are a intense, with everything falling into place for a dramatic ending. The entire book kept me captivated with French's mesmerizing writing style and delicate details. Everything is, somehow, inexorably linked together and you don't realize it until you've turned the last page.

Frankenstein was a little bit of a different story (in more ways that one). Published in the early 1800s, the book differs from the novels I'd been consuming all summer. But as a first group book for AP Literature, it was a good pick - not too long and not too boring. But I'd expected more action and less... illness. The book breezes past any scientific logic, which I can't blame Shelley for - I wouldn't know how to make life from inanimate matter either. And the good-vs-evil argument of the book, presented in an unorthodox way, kept me interested. Who is the monster: Frankenstein, for creating and abandoning the creature, or the creature for what it's done? However, one thing bothered me a lot about this book and that was its realistic inaccuracies. Even as an early science fiction novel, there was no excuse for the constant sickness of Victor Frankenstein. He gets ill after seeing his creation come to life, after seeing the corpse of a friend and on several other occassions - only one of them being truly viable. The constant whining and sickness made Frankenstein seem like a sissy and made the book a little more than a bit laborious to read. I expected something more dramatic and engaging that what I got from Frankenstein, but I will let it reside on my bookshelf all the same.

I'm shuffling!

I needed a new iPod. I have an older iPod from 2 and a half years ago. The pixels are starting to go out in the screen so I have to turn the brightness down as far as it will go to preserve the pixels that haven't gone black yet. So I was in the market for a new Apple product (now that I'm addicted to Apple, thanks to my Macbook).

I wanted a Nano for a while. They're small, light-weight, adorable, colorful, etc. But $200. It wouldn't be a problem with my paychecks and the fact I hardly buy anything, but I'd also need an armband for running and those seem to be pretty difficult to find. And they only came in 4GB and 8GB and I want a device I could put all my music on and a Classic has 80-160GB and is $50 more.

And then I went to this page: Shuffle. I immediately began thinking of the pros and cons of getting only a 2GB music player. It came with a clip so I could clip it to myself while I run - completely hands free. I could put on only songs I like so I wouldn't have to worry about picking playlists or skipping songs while I run or study. Plus, it was less than half the price of a Nano. So I went to Best Buy and bought a silver one.

All the colors available are pretty and vibrant. And they get lighter and darker depending on the lighting and the angle. They are small and once clipped on, you can hardly tell it's there. I went outside with my Shuffle clipped onto my shorts and sat there for two hours doing homework and didn't skip a single song because I had hand selected each song I put on.

I would recommend a Shuffle to anyone. They aren't a lot of money and they're incredibly convenient and handy. I love mine already and I've only had it for two days. Plus, they're aesthetically pleasing and cute, as far as technology goes. I'd like to get another one in another color and put another playlist on it: a 1GB Shuffle for only one kind of music (*ahem* Disney soundtracks... *ahem*).

( )

So I'm not going to pretend like I know anything major about politics. Especially not when everyone else is way more informed than me with a huge election coming up this year.

But Michelle Obama's speech earlier this week was amazing.
If I could, I would totally vote for him.

And that's all.

What happened to kid TV?

Today, my brother made a joke about the name Doug today. He's seven and was like, "Haha, Doug? Like, I dug a hole??" And then he laughed for about five minutes.

I, however, was still in bed, half asleep. So when he mentioned Doug, I immediately thought of the old cartoon I used to watch daily as a child. And then I thought of the many other shows I remember from my childhood:

Doug
Hey, Arnold!
AAAHH!! Real Monsters!
Little Bear
Rupert
Allegra's Window
Blue's Clues
Lamb Chop
Barney
Ren and Stimpy
The Angry Beavers
Rugrats

Sometimes, I see Blue's Clues or Little Bear or even Hey, Arnold! on TV. I never actually look for Barney, but I'm sure it is on still. But where did all those other shows go? Rupert always had the coolest adventures. He flew and swam and met all kinds of cool creatures. Doug was such a cute show, too. And AAAHH!! REAL MONSTERS was not scary but really funny and cute. I basically grew up on Allegra's Window and Lamb Chop was my favorite show as a toddler. And The Angry Beavers and Ren and Stimpy had funny looking characters but I laughed my head off at those shows. And Rugrats always had a story or a moral and it was my favorite show ever.

But now these shows are replaced with Hannah Montana, Barnyard and other shows that are less amazing than the ones I grew up on. They're more annoying, in my opinion, and aren't supporting things my shows did. Unless you're watching Jimmy Neutron which makes science look like magic, other shows like Spongebob have lessons once in a while but is mostly full of gags to make the kids laugh.

Most of the cartoons my brothers watch are full of mindless plots, over-dramatic (and most often stupid) characters and no real lessons to speak of. Just like toys now give kids no imagination, so does our TV.

I remember Little Bear so well because it was always so imaginative. He went on adventures, played with all his friends and it was a magical show for me as a young child. But there aren't any shows like that anymore that I can think of. It's a shame that we've given up quality shows for shows featuring lisps, bad grammar, disrespect and force-fed mindlessness.

Breaking Dawn (Stephanie Meyer)

So I read Breaking Dawn and got done with it yesterday. Yeah, yeah, it took a while since I got it at 12:10 AM on August 2. But still!

Basically, it was good. It was a little long, a little slow and a little unexpected. I could not, in a million years, have predicted what happened at the end of the book. I was floored by the first 150 to 200 pages.

As far as final books of a saga go, it was pretty good. It wrapped up basically every loose end I could think of and I was pretty happy. I'm looking forward to Meyer's next book, which will be the first book of the series, Twilight, in Edward's point of view.

If anyone else read the book, tell me what you think. I can't say too much yet, since people haven't finished it yet and I don't want to let out any spoilers. :D

A Good and Happy Child (Justin Evans)

On the way back home from Utah, I read another book. This one was called A Good and Happy Child, written by Justin Evans.

The book is told in "notebooks" by a thirty-something named George. He has just begun seeing a therapist because his wife is frustrated with the fact that George will not touch or take care of their newborn son. Through these notebooks, he remembers things about his childhood he'd nearly forgotten, including what was thought to be a case of demonic possession.

The book keeps you turning the pages, wanting to find out about George's "Friend" and his father's untimely death and all the other elements that Evans spins around you in the novel. It's immensely gripping and I had to make myself put it down to go to bed during vacation and put the bookmark in it to leave the van at rest stops. The character development was great. The modern-day George is bitter and unhappy and the child George is confused, curious and enthralled with the mysteries he is finding all around him.

I would give this book 8 out of 10 stars. There were parts toward the end where the narrative had me confused. But mostly, the story was thick and enthralling. I'd reread it again just to pick up on extra details I missed the first time around.

Life's Small Lessons...

We are in Utah and down the street from where we are staying, there is a simply-Mac store. I have been bugging my parents about getting a Macbook for several months and they've finally caved.

But not in a way that I expected.

We went and bought my Macbook yesterday after a very long discussion about finances for it. They are not paying for it.

I used their American Express card to purchase the computer. When we get back to Iowa, we are taking out a $2000 loan, with me as a cosigner. I will be paying monthly payments of about $200 to pay back the bank and get a credit score. Because my parents have such good credit, we are getting the loan for only 5 or 6%.

This will seriously come in handy when I have a computer during college and am not paying nearly as much interest as I could be on my student loans because I will already have a credit score and, with any luck, it will be a good one, since I've promised to pay on time and get it paid off early so my parents' score doesn't go down (it's nearly perfect, which is astounding).

And if anyone cares: Macbooks are amazing. Within an hour, I was already customizing, installing and thoroughly enjoying myself. I am super happy.

In the Woods (Tana French)

While driving for 2 days from Iowa to Utah, I sat in the backseat and digested the best-selling book In the Woods by Tana French.

It started off with a bang. There was immediate mystery. It is a book that is basically an emotional, detailed police investigation, on the scene and behind the scenes. I'd never read a book like tihs before and I was instantly intruiged when I first saw it on the shelf at Barnes and Noble. The plot was full of twists and turns and dead ends.

The plot is that in 1984 (backstory) three children went to play in the woods in Knocknaree and only one of them came out, unable to remember what had happened to his friends but being altogether terrified. In present day, a young girl, Katy Devlin, is found in the same woods at an archeological dig, murdered. The young boy, now grown up and using a different name, is put on the case with his partner, Cassie Maddox.

What I loved about the book is that there is so much background and depth to everything. There is poltiical backstory, emotional backstory and every kind of backstory you could want. And you can't guess whodunit. It's a complete surprise by the end. You'll feel completely betrayed by the text and the characters and the author. But it is a satisfying frustration with the ending. I would read this book again, with pleasure, to catch all the hints I am sure Tana French threw in along the way.

Overall, I'd give this book 8 stars out of 10. It was written with impeccable detail and had an intricate storyline. It is definitely on my own list of my 25 favorite books.

Snuff (Chuck Palahniuk)

Last week, I began and finished the book Snuff, by one of my favorite authors Chuck Palahniuk. I haven't read anything by Mr. P for quite a while, waiting for Rant to come out in paperback. But my friend bought his newest book in hardcover and she read it in just a few days and she surprise-loaned it to me.

It took me a few days to actually get around to reading more than 20 pages at once. I'd been trying to read outside because it's summer but there are tons of gnats in my yard. So it was just disgusting. But once I sat down on my couch and dedicated myself to the book, I read over half of it at one time.

Granted, the book has a few flaws. Firstly, there is a lot of (semi- and totally graphic) talk about sex and sexual things. I would not recommend this book to anyone who is not... open-minded, to say the least. Secondly, there are 4 narrators. I had a hard time telling the 3 males apart because Chuck P didn't really distinguish the narratives a lot. They all stayed in his usual style.

The book is basically about porn. And a woman, Cassie Wright, accomplished porn star, wanting to break the record of number of men to have sex with in one... porn shoot? IDK. They go in to the room in groups of 3 and there are 600 of them. But there are all sorts of twists and turns and surprises that make it hard to put down, even though you are constantly checking to make sure no one is reading the dirty words in the book over your shoulder.

Overall, I'd give the book 3.5 stars out of 5. If anyone but Chuck Palahniuk had tried to write this book, it'd be a train wreck. But with the Chuck P name on it, it's a train wreck in the best of ways.

This weather is crazy!

We here in Eastern Iowa have been having the worst weather this year. We had a horrible winter, barely any spring and now for the summer hardly any reprieve from rain and storms. It's insane.

Right now, the Cedar River, which runs through our downtown, is at 29.5 feet. The flood level of the river is only 12 feet. It is supposed to crest tonight/early this morning at 32-33 feet. It's crazy. There's massive amounts of water everywhere. It's the only thing on TV and the news.

There is water coming up to and over the railings of bridges that are usually towering above the river. There is water half-way up buildings downtown, such as the library. There is water coming up to the top of parking meters and street signs. It is really weird to see parts of my city on TV that are covered in water that I see normally completely dry. I can't even explain it.

I watched the CBS Evening News and two of the top stories were from Iowa. One was the flooding and the other was the massive tornado that went through a Boy Scout camp in Little Sioux (I think that's the town...?) which killed 4 boys and injured 48. It was horrible.

New York Times: Tornado Kills 4 in Iowa Boy Scout Camp
Cedar Rapids struggles to endure historic flood


I didn't take any of these pictures. I got them all from the Gazette.










On the right is our City Hall, which is on an island. There should be bridges connecting the left and right sides of the picture.




I was watching the news, and there was a FISH swimming around on First Avenue. There's that much water. It's crazy. Luckily I'm not getting any water in my house at all. The street is like a river when it rains (because when it rains, it pours) but it's draining unlike many other places around in my city.

(Hopes and wishes to those who are being evacuated and flooded out of their homes.)

Hopes and Dreams

This is my media essay. My last AP Lang assignment of the year!
I made it in Windows Movie Maker, so it looks pretty grainy. And you have to view it full screen. Just click the video and read the description. :)

Heathers

This weekend, while browsing Youtube, I discovered that someone has posted the movie "Heathers" in 12 parts. I had been wanting to see this movie since I heard about it probably years ago on VH1's "I Love the 80s". Given that it was a Sunday on a three-day weekend, I thought, "Why not?" I loaded the first part of the twelve and started watching.

I was completely enthralled from beginning to end, despite the grainy, 80s film and the bizarre, morbid events that happened every ten minutes. The basic plot of the movie is that there is a girl named Veronica Sawyer and she basically abandoned her other friends to be with the Heathers, the late 80s "Mean Girls" of Westerberg High School. She meets a new guy at school named JD and he's a little... off. Within the first twenty minutes, JD pulls a gun out of his pocket and shoots blanks at two guys giving him a hard time in the cafeteria. But this doesn't faze Veronica (or the Heathers, to be honest). Apparently, pretending to shoot someone with a real gun was sexy in the 80s. Now, they'd just be derranged.

But as events in the movie progress, there are real deaths that are passed off as suicides until Veronica decides she's had enough. She's not getting what she wants out of the deaths of these people, she just feels horribly guilty. But JD can't get enough of these murderous thrills. The movie is intense because it keeps you wondering who's going to die next. It's a murder mystery that isn't really a mystery at all. You know who did it but no one besides the two main characters know. It's like your own little movie-long secret.

The climax of the movie is as intense as it is surprising. All I can say is that this movie would never be made these days. With fake school shootings, teenagers committing mass murder, suicide scandals, raging language and bombings, "Heathers" crosses boundary after boundary until you feel like you are watching something utterly taboo. It's a rollercoaster ride of murder, suspense and twists and turns.

What I really liked about this movie, though, is that despite all the morbidity and copious amounts of death, there was no real gore. Even in the climax of the movie, there is minimal amounts of blood and gross things you would find in movies nowadays. This is probably one of the reasons that a movie as sick and twisted as "Heathers" found a place on my favorites movies of all time.


Here's a trailer. It's a really weird trailer. I'd Google another one if I were you.

August Rush

Yesterday afternoon, I settled down into the basement with my parents to watch a movie. My brothers were out and about, playing with the neighborhood kids and so what do we decide to watch? August Rush, an amazing movie rated PG.

The basic storylines of this movie is that a kid named Evan Taylor who runs away from a boy's home and ends up in New York (it is where the music leads him). He meets a kid named Arthur and a man named Wizard (and other, name-less characters) and discovers he has a huge musical talent. There is also the story of his parents, Lyla and Louis, who meet one night while both escaping a party and they fall in love and make a baby. In the present, while Evan (their son) is in NYC, they are in Chicago and San Francisco, unaware of the whereabouts of the other, being sad and not musical anymore, until Lyla decides she wants to find her son after news from her father and Louis wants to find Lyla after reuniting with people from his old band.

There are many moments in this movie that makes you want to yell and scream at the characters and their circumstances because they are SO CLOSE to the truth and yet so far. But there are many sweet moments, many cute moments and many heart-wrenching moments. If you happen to have a heart, you might want a box of tissues. But, as you can predict from the PG rating, everything is happy at the end. But instead of having a cliche vocal-realization moment or a cheesy epilogue, the film has a very classy finish with an unspoken acknowledgment between Lyla, Louis and Evan.

But because this movie is basically half-a-musical, there are many songs to be had. And they are amazing! Some of things Evan/August does with the guitar is magical and many of the vocal performances are terrific. The cello parts with Lyla are also incredible. I don't know of Freddie Highmore (Evan/August), Keri Russell (Lyla) and Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Louis) actually did their instrumenal or vocal performances, but if so, they are outstanding. (I personally don't doubt Meyers' performance, but I doubt that Freddie Highmore is truly a musical prodigy and that Keri Russell has been a life-long cellist, but it's a vague possiblity.)

On the Road

After a month and a half of on-again, off-again reading, I have finally finished On the Road by Jack Kerouac. This book had been idolized, raved about and put on a pedestal so it felt like I was joining some kind of cult just by reading it.

But reading a book that was basically legendary, I found it left a lot to be desired. I had really high expectations when I began on page one and those expectations were not fulfilled. The narrations were too jumpy and there was a profound lack of detail. It was something that worked in fellow Beat-Generation author William S Burroughs's Junky but only left me wishing there was more substance in On the Road.

Once I started reading On the Road in class or at home, it was fun to read. It was entertaining to emerse myself in Kerouac and his friends' lives (as he used pseudonyms for each character). But it was hard to find the motivation to sit down and read the book (which is completely the opposite for Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest which I am reading now).

One thing unrelated to the novel itself but I find really interesting is that Neal Cassady is featured as Dean Moriarty in On the Road and now I am reading One Flew... and Ken Kesey and Neal Cassady totally hung out together in the sixties. So the two books that took my interest and that I am reading one after the other have a pop-culture legend to link the two.

AP Psych video links

We Like Psychology
--A clever song about various and some very RANDOM aspects of psychology.
Psych School Musical Parts 1-7
--Tons of great, catchy songs to help you remember related terms of psychology.
Psychology Tutorials and Demonstrations
--Helpful demonstrations of informative experiments to help students remember lessons of more technical aspects of the chapters.

Chapter 3: Nature and Nurture of Behavior
Nature versus Nurture
--A really short, animated cartoon about nature and nuture.
nature vs. nurture
--An informed look at the nature vs nurture debate.
The Science of Sexual Orientation; CBS News
-Interesting video about a study of twins that develop difference gender identities and sexual orientations, which fuels the nature vs nurture debate.

Chapter 7: States of Consciousness
Sleep Disorders
--Homemade psychology video about 4-5 different sleep disorders.
Drugs
--Vague video about the effects of various consciousness-altering drugs.
Dream Symbols
--Fun site for the "decoding" of dreams.
Dreams and Consciousness Links
--Links to various dream sites - where I found the Symbols page.

Chapter 8: Learning
Classical Conditioning
--Good animated, voiced-over video that gives the basics on classical conditioning.
Skinner box
--A recorded example of a Skinner box
Bobo Doll experiment
--Video of the Bobo Doll experiment

Chapter 10: Thinking and Language
Language - Psychology
--Homemade demonstrations of thinking with and without language
Psychology and Language
--Can animals think? Gorilla matches nonsense symbols to words!
Miley Cyrus, JabbawockeeZ and Psychology
--Entertaining video (without the first minute or so) about thinking/expressing thoughts without words.
Prototypes and Heuristics - Psych School Musical (Part 1)
--Fun video set to a High School Musical song that discusses prototypes and heuristics.

Chapter 12: Motivation
Aspects of Motivation in Office Space - Psych 4024
--Fun video giving examples of motivation from the movie "Office Space."
Psych Project - Motivation and Gender Roles
--Analyzes commercials to find the gender roles as well as motivational parts of psychology buried within them.
Maslow's Pyramid
--Homemade video showing the layers of Maslow's Pyramid (heirarchy of needs).

Chapter 14: Personality
Cluster A personality disorders in "The Wizard of Oz"
--Fun, memorable video showing various personality disorders through characters in the Wizard of Oz

Chapter 16: Therapy
Anxiety Treatment: Psychotherapy
--A video demonstrating one type of therapy, best suited for one of the most common disorders: anxiety.

Chapter 18: Social Psychology
social psychology project
--Social psychology demonstrated by strangers' reactions to a "madwoman" roaming the streets.
Social Psychology - Psych School Musical (Part 7)
--Another memorable Psych School Musical production, this time the song is from the Little Mermaid.
Social Psychology Experiment
--How many people will switch doors when the see the "Men" and "Women" signs on the door to a school building?

Gloomy Sunday

On a mix that one of my friends made me a couple of weeks ago, there was a song called "Gloomy Sunday." Before looking at the artist, I thought that it would be some sort of indie-emo song that would be melancholy and pretty to listen to. Instead, I got a hit song from 1941 by Billie Holiday that is called, when not by name, "The Hungarian Suicide Song."

The song has been produced by countless artists since the 1930s. The Holiday version has a beautiful, sad orchestration behind the simplistic vocals. It flows gently from phrase to phrase but there is a definite sense of sentimentality and sadness in the tones of the instruments and with Holiday's soulful interpretation of the lyrics.

Since the song was released, there have been many urban legends regarding suicide rates. It was rumored that many radio networks banned the song from the airwaves beacuse, when played, suicide rates spiked. More legends can be found at the song's Wikipedia page.

According to Wikipedia, the Holiday version of the song has an additional stanza. Dreaming, I was only dreaming/I wake and I find you asleep/In the deep of my heart here... This gives the song a dreamlike quality and takes away some of the heartbreaking quality of the Hungarian suicide song.

House of Leaves

Early this year, I basically consumed the book House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski. It was like nothing I'd ever read before, and for several reasons. First of all, there were three different storylines going on all at once. There were layers of stories upon layers of stories, which made it altogether entrancing. Somehow, each storyline was kept seperate so confusion was barely noticable.

Another reason was the gigantic and numerous footnotes. It was crazy how many footnotes there were in the whole thing. And sometimes, one footnote would run for pages. But the footnotes were like their own story, which made the stories blend closely even though they were totally different despite similar themes of chaos and insanity.

But the third reason was the typography of the book. Danielewski played with all sorts of text layouts, font changes and colors and all sorts of ways to keep the reader turning pages such as: footnotes that ran for pages as mirror-reflection text, pages with 1-10 words on a page to keep the suspense high and text that comes in designs to represent something from the story.

After finishing this book, I was hoping that I'd be able to find some sort of movie version of The Navidson Record. Everything in the novel made all documentation of the House seem eerily real, like something that could be transferred from pages to real life. It's a novel that would be stunning as a film, but there's no way to conquer something so conceptual as House of Leaves. It is something that must be kept as a book to be cherished that way by everyone dedicated enough to hack through the mystery of its pages.

The Gray Room

The walls have been painted gray and they are the flattest, smoothest walls. They cast no shadows and repel any shadow that dares come near. There is one light hanging from the gray ceiling. It is white and bright like a singular star. And on one gray wall hangs a clock, each hand spinning from number to number far too quickly to illustrate the true passage of time. After staring at it, the whole rooms seems to be spinning.

In the center of the room, there is one reclining chair. It is old, worn and tattered, showing the scars of war from years of exposure to the elements. In some places, cushion stuffing pops out like foam popcorn. In many places, threads and chunks of material stick up like harmless cactus needles. The chair is like a mirage in the desert: if you give in to the comfort it advertises, will it disappear?

Skin begins to crawl as the room spins faster and faster. The recliner begins to creak and rock with the rotations of the room. Eyes close but cannot block out the strange vision of the gray walls, the white light, the broken recliner, the spinning hands of the clock. Outside the room, there are the sounds of a world crashing apart. A world sounds like a crying baby, a falling tree, a roaring crowd, an angry ocean, when it falls apart.

Arms cover the ears, fingers clasp behind the bones of the spine, trying to block out the sounds of a world at its end. But the room keeps spinning and the sounds only grow louder to compensate for the muffling. One person, solitary, rocking back and forth, hunched over, barely able to breathe for the weight of the world prying its chest apart.

Then the room stops spinning and the world stops falling apart. A door appears in the opposite wall. It opens. A rush of warm, natural light floods in. Outside of the door are fields of flowers and butterflies, rolling hills and tall, green trees. Outside the clocks tick to the right rhythm, the world is quiet like a trickling stream and there is air and life and color.

Legs stretch to their full length and muscles move beneath the skin. Soon, the room is empty and the world outside has rediscovered its long-lost child.

Graduation Blues

Even though I'm not a senior (yet), I'm getting the graduation blues anyway. Let me explain.

When the 8h graders graduated middle school and went into the grown up world of high school, it was okay with all the 7th graders because we'd be joining them again in a year when we got to high school too. It was just a year of abandonment by our older friends before we all reunited into one big force again.

But now as high school comes to a close for the class of 2008, while they're all saying "Finally!" I'm saying, "... already?" These three years have flown by and I'm not ready to let a lot of people go. This is because I know that I won't be following them to the next stage in life like I did before. This is going to be the final and permanent seperation of the class of 2008 and the class of 2009.

After high school, members of the classes before us and the classes after us will disperse all across the state, even across the country. As I look through the end-of-the-year issue of the Torch at who is going where, it makes me sad that I know so many people and they're going somewhere I know I won't be going. In this category are the people electing to go to a state school and those who are going out of state for opportunities bigger and better than the ones they can find in Iowa.

And all this makes college more real in a way that I know that I really won't know most of the people I'll be learning next to once I graduate. But more than anything, it makes me sad to know that in only a week, there are people I won't see again except on Facebook or in remembering the good ol' times of high school (or the not so good ol' times, but memorable moments nonetheless).

We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things.

Yesterday, the new album from Jason Mraz hit stores with a startling lack of shelf space. And because I just completed my fourth and final AP exam today, I decided to treat myself to a nice, musical treat to enjoy while working on my long-neglected homework pile.

After listening to the CD, I have some definite favorites which I am sure I will point out. My first favorite would be the second track, "I'm Yours" which I'd already heard from a mix my friend Danielle made me. I'd loved it already and was pleased to find it on the CD. It's a mellow, beachy song that makes you want to sit down, close your eyes and sway from side to side (so get your lighters out, people). Another favorite of mine is "Lucky" which features Colbie Caillat. It's a really happy, pretty song and the duet is absolutely amazing. The lyrics are really relatable and fun and Jason seems to really have fun through the entire beginning of the song (listen and you'll hear what I mean).

Another one of my favorites "Details in the Fabric" which features James Morrison. I heard this song was immediately reminded of another soft, acoustic musician but I can't put my finger on the name. I got this vibe with a lot of the songs on the album, so perhaps it only shows that all the songs are distinctly new and yet distinctly Mraz-esque. But this song is really beautiful and there's a lurking emotion behind each of the melodies and all the vocals that really makes it come to life and stick out from most of the other songs.

The next three songs, "Coyotes", "Only Human" and "The Dynamo of Volition" are probably my favorite songs of the whole album. They have the familiar fast-talking lyrics that we're familiar with from songs such as "Wordplay" (Mr A-Z) and "The Remedy" (Waiting for my Rocket to Come). They all have more minor-sounding melodies which makes them a bitter sort of upbeat. And did I mention there are traces of synthesized beat tracks in the background as well? These songs are really fun, especially if you focus and try to concentrate on the flow of the words (especially on "The Dynamo of Volition"). And the end of "Coyotes" have little kids singing. Which is absolutely adorable.

The only song I wish hadn't appeared on this album was the fourth track, "Butterfly." This song was a little awkward to listen to because it showed all the sexual thoughts running through Jason's head in some strange, somewhat comical metaphors. It is fun to listen to but you still feel awkward listening to it. It could have been just as well-rounded without that particular track.

Songs I excluded: "Live High", "Love for a Child", "If It Kills Me" and "A Beautiful Mess" all of which are good but not immediate favorites.

7 Year Old... In an SUV?!

... this is so wrong.



SPOILERS HERE:

HOW DOES A SEVEN YEAR OLD MANAGE TO STEAL AND DRIVE A CAR??!!?

AND HOW DOES THAT NOT DESERVE TIME IN A JUVENILE DETENTION FACILITY?!?!

ARE YOU KIDDING?!?!

I don't understand. This kid isn't even sorry. He's like, "It's fun to drive cars and 'do hoodrat stuff'." And he has a seven year old friend who smokes CIGARETTES?!?!

What is it that has gone horribly wrong in our world today that a seven year old can get cigarettes or drive an SUV without people noticing? I mean, I've got a seven year old brother and all he cares about it playing the PS3 and acing his spelling test and playing with his friends after school. How is it that someone the same age can have the brain capacity to even IMAGINE stealing a car? And then not show any signs of any sort of remorse?

I bet this kid is going to grow up and be a complete delinquient. I mean... when a kid is this young and is already getting into heavy crimes like this, what do you think he's going to be doing five... ten years from now? This is horrible. Usually, people only have delusions of grandeur if they are schizophrenic or bipolar. This kid just has no boundaries to his active imagination, apparently.

And for this, he'll probably hunt me down and do some "hoodrat stuff" to me.

Give me a break.

Three Songs I Love

Right now, things are incredibly stressful. With all the various tests, exams and assignments I have from school, prom, and personal events that I have coming up, I hardly have time to root myself in anything for more than fifteen minutes of concentration. This includes my blog, my AP Lang essay, my AP Bio lab report and TV shows.

Thankfully, my favorite songs aren't over fifteen minutes long because then I'd be in serious trouble. Three songs I've been listening to obsessively to keep myself "in the zone" I will now dissect for you here in my blog.

1. "Plane" by Jason Mraz
This song is really mellow at the beginning with a minor key tonality and pretty piano key tinkling. The lyrics are comprehensible and are, at times, clever. Jason manages to keep himself almost monotone through the first part of the song before the strings cut in and he lets go... a little. However, in the next part of the song, there is a controlled intensity in the music as well as in his vocals. Then it calms down again only to close with a crescendo of cathartic emotion.
Listen here

2. "Mad World" by Gary Jules
This song has been on my mind since I saw in the last scenes from the movie Donnie Darko (which is beyond amazing). The lyrics are flowing and so is the music and vocals and basically every aspect of this song. It's easy to sing along to, without much of a range of notes to be had, and it moves so seamlessly from verse to chorus to verse that by the time the song is over you can hardly remember what exactly you just heard. So you listen to it again. And again.
Listen here

3. "If I Was a House" by Beasts and Superbeasts
I've already dissected this song enough with my last post so I'll just summarize my feelings here. This song is amazing. I like to think of it as three parts that all fall together in a puzzle pieces way that makes it fantastic. It is all at once whimsical, emotional and magical. I listen to this song over and over trying to hear each and every detail of the dual vocals and the unique sound of each instrument present in the song.
Listen here

These three songs have kept me fueled throughout a long and grueling batch of homework that seems to grow and grow like a Chia Pet without any reprieve in sight. Hopefully, they can last me until the end of the school year. I'll cross my fingers.

Beasts and Superbeasts

I have a Youtube account (to which I will not link because I don't have any videos worth anyone's time) which I use mostly just to favorite videos and subscribe to cool Youtubers. One of these 'tubers happens to be mememolly, a formerly-British, now-Canadian teenage girl who I discovered over the summer from her homemade music video to Rilo Kiley's "The Frug."

In her latest video, "Glamorous," Molly told her viewers about all the books she bought recently (including one of my favorites Looking for Alaska) as well as a CD she bought. It was the debut album from the band Beasts and Superbeasts. The cover was really pretty so I decided to Google them and listen to the music on their Mypsace.

I didn't even get halfway through the first song of four before I absolutely fell in love with their style. The song, "If I Was a House," is completely magical. It starts with a cool accordion sound that is then accompanied by a mellow guitar melody. Soon the accordion drops out, yields to piano tinkling and male-female paired vocals that are fairly toneless but fantastic nonetheless. A little over halfway through the song, the guitar melody returns with a darker sound and so does the accordion, as if you just went from a mellow sailing trip to a journey into the dark and stormy sea. The lyrics and the vocals become more intense and emotional with about a minute left of the song. But then you come out of the storm and back into the sunny sea with toneless but happier vocals and piano tinkling.

I haven't gotten around to their other songs because I am so in love with this one I'm afraid nothing else of theirs will compare (though I doubt this is true in practice).

Books I Want To Write

Writing a book sounds like a huge task. For some, it may be a dark and looming task as well, especially if you love telling stories and have wanted to write a novel for years but just haven't gotten there yet.

But if I were to write a book, there would be two possible books I'd want to put onto paper (or, more appropriately, into a Word document).

The first would be the novel I have been working on since October that I worked on dilligently all through November, AKA: National Novel Writing Month. It's a fantasy novel about kids, but not meant for a child audience (think His Dark Materials type of novel). It's fun to write and plot this story but I haven't made much time basically since the end of winter break to get anything written. Since then, I've written about 15 pages, which is not very much considering I wrote probably 120 or so during November alone. It's a total of 167 pages as of right now and I'm waiting for the time to be able to dedicate to some serious, hardcore writing time.

The second book I would want to write is a novel that would mix basically everything I could ever want to read about. It would be a horribly self-indulgent novel and I would probably be the only person to purchase a copy in any bookstore anywhere. I would somehow manage to blend drug culture and vampires and magic (which sounds incredibly corny now that I type it out but does not in my head). It would probably end up being somewhat epic, because I'd need some sort of social drama, adventure drama and immortal drama. But it would be so much fun to write! If only for my own personal joy. :)


PS: I stole this topic from Chris Brogan's website where he has a list of 100 topics people should write about. I chose: #25: Books I Want to Write. (His list is very helpful.)

The Sims (2)

Yesterday, for lack of anything else (except homework) to do, I decided to play the Sims. I installed the Seasons expansion pack and haven't been able to use it as much as I'd like yet so I made great use of it. I made a Sim with Knowledge aspiration so that all her Wants would be easy to fulfil and went to town. I gave everything a Country theme except one room, which was a Tiki room. She has a gerbil and a green house and a pond to fish in. And I sat there and played for at least eight hours. I am not even kidding.

The Sim that I started yesterday is now at the top of the Culinary career track as a Celebrity Chef. She has lots of funny outfits that she can wear to work, when she goes to work, three days a week making over 2,000 Simoleons a day. She has a gold gardening badge, which means she can talk to her plants to make them thrive, and a silver fishing badge, which means she can catch more kinds of fish. Her cooking and creativity skill points are maxxed out and her body points are nearl there. She has seven friends, who are all also best friends, and one love interest (though they have no chemistry... ??)

And now I am addicted to The Sims. And why? It's kind of sad that I sit in front of the computers for hours, only to control a simulated person's simulated life. But, let's face it.. Sim lives are so much better than our own. My Sim makes $2000 a day but her bills are ony $100. She has a maid who charges $20 a day (basically, because my Sim is consistently non-slob-ish) and I can just cheat to get my Sim anything she (or I...) want. Everything is easy and black and white as a Sim. There aren't social cliques or sexist bosses to keep you from the top of your career track or any of the other things that make our lives horribly complicated.

Despite the fact that the makers of The Sims are trying to make the game as real as possible, with chemistry factors between acquaintances and lots of customizable factors and traits, it gets farther and farther away from reality and farther into how harmoniously we wish we could really live.

Kelsey Wild

A few months ago, probably sometime during fall trimester, I went onto Purevolume (which I, apparently, pimp all the time) and looked at their featured artists. I stumbled upon an Indie/Acoustic arist named Kelsey Wild.

She's a seventeen year old artist from Byron, Illinois. Her music is basically her playing piano and her voice. She has a really unique voice that really defines her lyrics. In conjunction with her voice, her piano melodies give the perfect accents to her poetic lyrics. All her songs are very mellow, very stripped down and vulnerable and extremely pretty. She's immensely talented.

All of Kelsey's songs tell stories, in some way. They're all personal and have some kind of experience from her life to convey. Her music is mellow and perfect to listen to when trying to write a story, do your homework or any other time during the day. Once you start listening to Kelsey's music, it will be stuck in your head all day long, cycling through one of her five songs on her Purevolume.

The only depressing thing is that Kelsey's music is so good you just want more of it once you've listened to her five tracks. The sad thing is that she isn't yet signed to any record label. I think she'd be an immediate hit among mellow indie listeners, maybe even wider audiences, espcially in the Midwest because that's where she's from and where she's play shows. However, there is no news on new songs or a potential record deal. But she has many fans crossing their fingers for an album in the future.

Luther College Visit

I am going to take a quick break from my usual blog posts about music and movies and books to write about my visit that I took yesterday to Luther College.

I left my house, with my dad in tow, around 8:30 in the morning. It was a really nice day for a two hour drive. We were mostly on two-lane highways with 55 miles an hour speed limits. But the weather was perfect. It was nice and sunny and bright. The grass was green and I passed a propane truck after miles of slow-driving aggravation.

We got there at 10:40 and spent the next five minutes trying to figure out where would be the best place to park and then where to go from our selected parking lot. Eventually, we figured it out and then were on our way with our tour guide to sightsee around the campus.

It was a long hike around the campus, especially in the hillier bits. We went all through the Union building (where the food's at!) and their "wellness" facilities and some dorm buildings and some learning buildings and looked around basically all the campus, mostly. Everything was maintained really well and looked really nice. I dig/dug it.

After the tour, we were free to go get lunch in the cafeteria with little food card things they gave us. So my dad and I went to get food. The cafeteria only had a million choices. It was really good food too. Instead of the bland, plain, gross stuff they serve at our school cafeteria (which I decline to eat by bringing my own lunch).

After everyone ate, we went to an official "Welcome!" presentation in the Center for Life and Faith, which is a really pretty building. The told us all sorts of fun factoids about Luther and then sent us on our way to meet with various departments or to do a student-to-student conversation or go to a financial aid session. My dad and I went to the English department one together and then I went to the Education session while my dad went to learn about financial aid stuff (yet again).

After all the department sessions, you could go back to the Union, get free (COLD AND REFRESHING because it was hot outside) beverages and talk to the admissions counsellor who would be looking over your application, if you so chose to apply. So my dad and I did that for, like, five minutes. And then we left because we had to drive the whole two hours home. But first we drove all through most of Decorah. Which is a cute, small little quaint town. But it actually has a lot of stuff, at least more than I thought it would. And it's basically five minutes from the Luther campus (but then again, it is the closest town for, like, forever).

Overall, the visit was really fun and went really well. They ran everything really smoothly, with plenty of people there to help you get where you're going and feel really comfortable doing it. I had a really good time and I think that after my visit, Luther is definitely at the top of my "Colleges I Want To Go To" list.

Tilly and the Wall

My friend, Danielle, introduced me to a band about a million years ago called Tilly and the Wall. I didn't really listen to them very much until about... a week or so ago. I'd only heard a fewof their songs ("Bad Education," "Rainbows in the Dark," and "Night of the Living Dead") but looked them up on YouTube to see if they had any music videos or live performance videos. And this is how I found out about the coolest thing about Tilly and the Wall.

Their percussionist is a tap dancer.

Which is only the single most unique thing I've ever heard of or seen from a band. Ever.

I was watching this video and I was like, "Wait a second..." And now I'm totally a slave to Tilly and the Wall. I have found that I have a broken record in my head that can't play anything besides "Bad Education" and "Rainbows in the Dark." Not that I'm complaining.

Tilly is a pretty unique band. The vocals aren't the most masterful. They sound kind of like a mix between Bright Eyes and vairous indie pop bands (which isn't surprising, given that they are signed to Conor Oberst's label, Team Love, and they were in a band with Conor before he went BIG TIME as Bright Eyes). Their lyrics and melodies are catchy and fun to sing along to (if you can figure out the words in time). It's easy to listen to their songs on repeat because they're so fun and loveable.

Their video for "Sing Songs Along" is probably a perfect example of how bright, bubbly and fun Tilly is. They are wearing bright colors, jumping around with a bunch of kids in a gymnastics studio and smiling, smiling, smiling! I think they are, overall, a pretty feel-good band, perfect for this emerging spring and up-and-coming summer.

Super High Me

There is a movie, coming out just in time for 420, called Super High Me. It is being made by High Time's Stoner of the Year, Doug Benson. I have a very strong urge to see this movie. It's a spoof off Super Size Me, in which that guy ate only Fast Food for 30 days. Instead, Benson is smoking pot and being high all day, every day, for 30 days.

Now, despite the illegality of marijuana and the obvious health side effects, I think this movie (or would it be a documentary...?) is going to be a joy to watch. Doug Benson is a pretty funny guy, being a professional comedian and all. I'm wondering, however, how much of the film is going to be humorous filler and pot-talk and how much will be professionals talking and (boring) factoids we have probably learned through our school's drug education program. Given that this is sort of a parody documentary, I am pretty sure that it will be mostly bullshit the whole way through. We'll see, however.

The movie is doing "grassroots screenings" all over the country on 420 but I can't find a REAL release date. You have to be 18 in order to organize a screening and get a (free!) DVD sent to your house. Which is a shame. Because I'd totally love to see it ASAP because I could do with a good laugh - especially this weekend, after the heavy homework load this week has bestowed upon me.

But here is a trailer, as I always post videos. Tell me what you think.

As Tall As Lions

Every once and a while, I like to go to the homepage of Purevolume and look at their featured bands. Normally, I can't really find any bands that I like. But a few days ago (okay, so more like a week ago) I went onto the Purevolume page and found the profile (?) page for As Tall As Lions. I have been listening to this band for days on end, seriously.

I downloaded the free songs from their Purevolume and bought their self-titled CD. I burned all the songs onto one disc of happiness, joy and wonder. Probably half of the songs on the 14-track CD are considered favorites of mine by this particular band. The songs are all different and the same at the same time. They have intensity of emotion lurking behind the layers of instrumentation and vocals. The lyrics are very abstract and storylike and, with the "Ambient / Indie / Rock" influences (thanks, Purevolume!) it makes for an overall enchanting album.

The one thing that has been bothering me through this entire obsession with this band is that the lead singer sounds A LOT like another singer but is obviously a different person. I cannot think of who it is. Sometimes, he sounds a little like the singer of Keane, but then I'm like, "No..." And then he sounds like the singer of the band The Juliana Theory, but that isn't right either. I also considered that he and the singer of Meriwether sounded a lot alike, but I'm not too sure about that either. But listening to songs over and over to try to solve this mystery is only a weak excuse for listening to As Tall As Lions as much as humanly possible.

Some of the songs I highly recommend are:
A Break, A Pause
Ghost of York
Stab City
Song for Luna
The Carousel (which is on their Purevolume profile)


Video for the song "Love, Love, Love (Love, Love)":

City by the Sea

Two days ago, I watched a movie that I've been drooling over and wanting to watch for probably three days. It was fantastic and it was called City by the Sea.

The first reason I decided that I had to watch this movie ASAP was because James Franco is in it. And he's amazing.

Secondly, I watched a video on Youtube video of clips from the movie with James in them and it was awesome. Plus, there are drugs in this movie. So of course I want to watch it.

From the video I saw on Youtube (which you can view here), I thought the movie would have more to do with James Franco's character, Joey, and his addiction. Instead, it turned out to be more a cop-drama movie, which a tiny bit of Hollywood drug culture thrown in here and there. More of the shots with James had to do with him looking emo rather than strung out, even though, occording to how the plot was set up, he was basically involuntarily going cold turkey. I didn't think of this while watching the movie, but have, obviously, now that hindsight is 20/20 and I'm not sucked into the weavings of the plot.

I will say that some parts of the movie were very nicely editted. Such as when you know that Robert De Niro has sex with his neighbor, but, let's face it... he's kind of old and you don't want to see him doing such grotesque things on screen. Sorry, Robert.

But besides this, the film had other merits. It had plenty of antagonists, such as headstrong cops and an angry drug boss guy named Spider. (Probably spelled with a Y instead, to be a little more hardcore than something we smoosh whenever we see one crawling in our bathroom sink.)

The movie definitely deserves, at least, 3.5 stars out of 5. Some of the characters were thin and some parts of the plot seems a little off with the general vibe of the movie and were just a hassle for the viewing audience. But overall, the movie was really good. The acting was fantastic and the premise was enthralling. I would recommend this movie to my friends. Probably.

Trailer:

Sundays with Vlad (Paul Bibeau)

I just finished reading a fantastic book called Sundays with Vlad by Paul Bibeau. It is basically a (pop) cultural analysis of the development and spread of the Dracula legend.

The book was endlessly entertaining. Bibeau covers most aspects of the vampire legend. He goes over the historical Vlad the Impaler who was the VERY vague basis off the Dracula myth that was created almost single-handedly by Bram Stoker with the publication of Dracula, published in the late 1800s. Also covered in the book, are the movie adaptations of the novel and the extension of vampire propaganda. Also: Role-playing, vampire crime, people who believe they are either psychic vampires or sanguinarians (they actually drink blood) and even a politician in Minnesota who believed the state should impale criminals, such as rapists and child abusers.

If that doesn't sound gripping enough, there's something wrong with you.

Bibeau's humor was often understandable, even though he grew up in a much different generation that I did. He makes countless current pop culture references as well as personal anecdotes to bring the audience closer to his humor and his personality, which glows through the entire text.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed this book. I bought it on a whim during Spring Break with some generous Barnes and Noble gift cards and am very pleased with the purchase. The first chapter, in which he details his trecherous honeymoon in Romania with his wife, left me suspicious of the rest of the book but it pulled itself out of the gutter, so to speak, and was entertaining, so much that I was wishing I could be reading all throughout the school day and putting off homework in order to read it.

I'd give it, probably, 4 out of 5 stars, just because there were some parts that I wanted to be done with way faster than others, such as the visits to Romania and Hungary. But other than that, the book was humorous and fun to read.

Pictures: Help or Hinder?

For those of you that don't know me well, you may not know, but I am a huge fan of writing (as long as it's fiction and, for the most part, largely unrushed). I've been writing stories since I learned how to string words together on paper and have been telling stories for as long as I could coherently put together words.



This picture has been giving me fits for weeks. I saw it on a LiveJournal community one day and saved it to my computer because I thought it was really cool. I thought there was some kind of story lurking behind the facade. But for some reason, I have no idea where to start. And herein lies the problem. Whenever I get an idea, I have a middle - an elaborate middle if I dare to say it - but cannot seem to find out where to stop and where to prevent it from becoming an epic.



This is yet another picture of my many saved photos that has been giving me trouble. I know there is a story here. It's at the tip of my tongue, so to speak, or more accurately the tips of my fingers. It's frustrating that I can look at a picture, see the emotional undertones presented by the models' postures and expressions, the lighting of the environment and know what I want to write but have no idea where to start or how to write it. If only the ideas sulking around in my head like an emo kid listening to its iPod at full blast could manifest itself into words on a piece of paper or an MSWord document.

Of course, some pictures make my writing life easier. In the novel I began in October and have made approximately 2/3s of the way through (page 167! hoorah!) has been assisted and pulled along by a series of photos I saved that had pretty scenery and depictions of lighthouses such as this one:


Using pictures to get a better idea of where I want my characters to go, or where I want my characters to look like, is probably the only help I should try to get from pictures. But I can't resist the urge to keep making up the stories that go on behind the scenes of a picture, even if it is models on a set giving a series of looks in front of a flashing camera.

America's Next Top Model

After ten seasons, I hope you know about America's Next Top Model. And the fact there are a zillion shows just like it with out countries hosting.

But we don't care about Australia and Scandinavia's Next Top Model.

We care about the American version.

Because there are Americans in it.

And we, as Americans, are in love with the drama fest that is ANTM.

I know that I cannot turn away from the countless cat fights, runway challenges, photo shoots or the elimination of one girl per week. It is so fun to watch people who aren't terribly pretty pull off amazingly beautiful pictures that have been heavily editted and treated and made even more stunning. And watching their lithe, tiny bodies sashay down the runway in clothes that no one would wear in real life.

From watching ANTM, one can learn a lot about high fashion, fashion, modelling and the brutality of prettiness.

In this particular cycle, cycle 10, there are several girls that I like (such as Claire, who is the skinniest mother I've ever seen as well as Whitney, the opinionated "plus-size" model) as well as many that I do not care for in the least(such as Marvita, who is gone now thankfully as well as Fatima who is a total bitch and there is no other way to put it). And though I realize that these girls' images are being filtered and manipulated through cameras and editing... I like the drama and the stereotypes, etc present in the show.

But now I am going to go eat my Lays Stax, drink my calorie-laden Sunkist and watch people practice runway walks and enter into easily-avoidable catfights. HOORAY!

The Magic of Mixing

Since this Saturday, I have come to adore the process of putting together, burning, decorating and gifting mixed CDs.

I used to just do them for people for their birthdays or for special occassions. Or just for myself if I want to put a bunch of songs I like together for my auditory pleasure. But since Saturday, I have put together 4 CDs for different people.

The first one I did was one where all the first letters of the song titles spelled out "WANTTOGOTOPROM". :) The next one spelled out Happy Birthday. Then I made some CDs for another friend of mine (though they were copied albums, not mixes). I had fun decorating the CDs and making the playlists really cool looking.

And then that is not to forget all the mixed CDs I've receieved in the last month that I need to rip and put on my iPod. I have 2 CDs from one friend, another 2 from another friend that we made for a weekend in which my parents were out of town (that I need the playlists for so I know what the songs are) as well as 2 or 3 fanmixes from Fanmix.

But I will probably make a mix for myself when I get home, thanks to the ease of iTunes (sort of). I've got a lot of new songs the last week (or less) that desperately need to be put onto a CD. I do this mostly so that my playcounts on my iPod do not rocket upwards. (Hence why I've burned my Lily Allen, Kate Nash and Patrick Wolf CDs in the last month.)

And this was a completely pointless ramble, really. But it's perfectly all right.

Music video ramble

I wish I knew what was going on in that whole video (see above). It's a really cool music video - the scenes and imagery and the music parts are all really neat. But the only thing I get from the whole storyline, if you want to call it that, is that people set them up to make people go through a house like dominos but, like... tilting the universe of each room or something. And eliminating floors, walls and parts of ceilings. Huh what? It's an abstract video which makes it cool, but it isn't abstract enough to keep me from trying to guess what's going on. Which just dizzies my insecure little brain.

Then there are other videos, such as this one:


Though I love this song, and the video is pretty to look at, I honestly have no idea what I'm looking at. The only part of the video that makes any real sense is that she sings "hands on me" and people are later caressing seemingly random partners. And that Vanessa Carlton is wearing some kind of weird... weird-outfit. I don't even know. But the people change so fast that I can't get a good look at any of their outfits. I only know that a flash of pale legs equals the knowledge that Vanessa Carlton just graced the presense of my computer screen impaled eyeballs.

And THEN there are the "just plain cool" and "mostly abstract but also kind of making sense" videos. Case in point:


This video has the coolest imagery and continuous-shot thingies that I've ever seen. Like, the background changes and the pose stays the same. The whole video flows together in a really cool way. It kind of makes sense with the whole rest of the song, but mostly fitting the whiny-but-not-because-i'm-cool attitude of the songs as well as the artist and his video. This video NEARLY has a story, but not quite... it's still lacking serious storytelling elements.

However... this fits a storytelling bill (finally! a video that would make my creative writing teacher proud!)


The Hush Sound's new music video for their first single from their new album! I do some serious name dropping in this post! Oh well! This video has a definitely storyline and, even more (!), some actually character behind the members of the band that helps push the plot along. It's easy to follow and the song is great and everyone matches and they leave off like you can have a sequel!

(This post was mostly aimless... but I wanted to post a few videos because I like to and so I figured I'd talk about the videos I was posting. Hooray!)

The Wooden Sky

If there's one reason I like the Internet, it's people. If there are two, it is people and their music.

With websites such as Blogger, LiveJournal, Myspace and Facebook there's plenty of social networking going on. What I like most about this networking is the fact I can go to various LiveJournal communities and browse what people are offering to give me in terms of music. One community, Fanmix, has been quite reliable in giving me good music themed to a particular show, book, movie, whatever. I downloaded a LOST fanmix a few days ago and the girl who had made it had a song on it called "The Wooden Sky" by a band called The Wooden Sky. The song was beautiful and amazing and I can't stop listening to it.

So I looked up the band on Youtube and there were a few live performances recorded from MTV or something. So I listened to them, loved them, put them into mp3 format and dropped them onto my iPod. And the four songs I have by The Wooden Sky are now on repeat all day long.

The music is raw and real and passionate. The songs have familiar key tonality (thanks for the term, Pandora!) and the singer is basically amazing. I am eager to obtain the funds to buy their CD, When Lost at Sea, which came out just this month.

They also have a song called "North Dakota" which is basically Chuck Klosterman's life in a song. And the singer guy looks a little, tiny, eensy-weensy bit like CK. So that's funny.

Now enjoy a song:

note to self

This isn't an AP Lang post. This is a list of things to remember for my own use. It doesn't count!

Stuff to Read
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
No Speed Limit - Frank Owen
Suite Francaise- Irene Nemirovsky
Ghost - Alan Lightman
The Devil You Know - Mike Carey
The Gun Seller - Huge Laurie
I Am Not Myself These Days - Josh Kilmer Purcell
Bedlam - Dominic Bosco
Bedlam - Greg Hollingshead
Amsterdam - Ian McEwan
The Cement Garden - Ian McEwan
The Comfort of Strangers - Ian McEwan
Leaving Dirty Jersey - James Salant
A Million Little Pieces - James Frey
Naked Lunch - William S Burroughs
Ready, Okay! - Adam Cadre (Thanks, Michael!)
Rant - Chuck Palahniuk
Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk
The Beautiful and the Damned - F Scott Fitzgerald
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Hep-Cats, Narcs and Pipe Dreams


... this is a crazy long to-read list. Wow. There are probably more that I forgot. These were just ones in my phone or written down in convenient places.

If anyone has any of these books they could lend to me I'd be more than grateful.

Goodbye Blues (The Hush Sound)

From the time the Hush Sound released their first album in late 2005, I've been a fan. I first heard them on the beautiful site that is Purevolume. I was basically obsessed. And then, in the summer of 2006, the Hush Sound released their second album (on 6/6/06). I've loved both their albums but because it's been over a year without any hint of something new, I migrated to other artists (Patrick Wolf... Kate Nash...)

But the other day, I was driving around in the car and thinking, "I wonder what the Hush Sound is up to." So I googled them and they have a new CD coming out. On Tuesday. Two days before my birthday. (Atonement is also coming out on the 18th, as well as Enchanted (I think) so I'm going to need a lot of money this year...)

I've listened to their two "released" tracks from the new album, "Medicine Man" and "Honey" and they are amazing! They've changed their sound a bit, but what's a new album without a trace of reinvention? Greta's vocals are more mature, less lovely and flowy and are instead a little rougher and tougher. I like it, however. I can't find any songs that feature Bob's vocals but I hope they measure up. They usually both exceed expectations so I hope the trend continues.

I am giddy with excitement for this week. A new CD from one of my favorite bands ever, two amazing movies coming out and my birthday. Hooray!

Patrick Wolf

For quite a while, I've known that Patrick Wolf is amazing. I've been absolutely in love with his music for a good deal of time and for many reasons.

Firstly, he's a genius. In his first album Lycanthropy, all the songs were vaired and different. He didn't want to be pigeon-holed or pegged down to a certain style so he kept the listener on their feet, guessing what could possibly come next. He experimented with different sounds and styles and vocals. I loved it. I still do. One of my absoutely favorite songs of all time, "To the Lighthouse" inspiried my novel-in-progress immensely and I'll be forever in his debt (even if he doesn't know it).

Secondly, I can't stop listening! Because he's such a variable arist, I can listen to Patrick Wolf all the day long and never tire of him. His second album, Wind in the Wires, is probably his most song-to-song flowy album but I adore the style of every song on the disc. The Magic Position, his third album, is one of my favorites. He experiments with pseudo-dance pop and different moods and it's magical. I had mp3 copies of all his CDs and then bought them because they were so fantastic.

Thirdly, he can't mess up! I've watched many, many, many videos of him on Youtube that are live or music vidoes and his voice sounds exactly the same. He's flawless in every performance (until he gets drunk and forgets his own lyrics). Though vaguely Bowie-style eccentric, Patrick Wolf keeps faithful to his own music as well as his own sense of style. But musically, he is always perfect. I am amazed by the consistency of his voice. I've never heard any other arist who can sound the same from one performance to another, rain or shine (so to speak).

Here is an example of his vocal prowess:


And here is a live version, to contrast:

PS: He talks for about a minute in the beginning but he's entertaining. Also, he is wearing no shirt. Beware of nudity!

Pandora Radio

I listen to music on Pandora a lot. I like looking at the different songs and finding what things link my various stations together. I've learned a lot about my musical tastes. Apparently, I like:
-Minor key tonality
-Extensive vamping
-Subtle use of strings
-Subtle use of vocal harmony

Right now, my stations that I have are:
-Dance pop
-Kate Nash
-The Beatles
-Patrick Wolf

I've had my Patrick Wolf station since I first got a Pandora account this fall. I've listened to basically every song that Pandora can get to match P Wolf and I've weeded out those that I don't really care for. I'm shaping up my Kate Nash station the same way and I like basically every song they've given me for more than an hour's worth of listening.

Pandora is a fascinating music... whatever it is. Free-online-streaming radio? Prexisting-music-generator at the push of a button? Mind reader with an extensive collection of tunes? Whatever. It's amazing. For someone who's picky about what she listens to (me) but doesn't have the time to keep changing songs (me) because she'll get distracted and never get anything done (me!), Pandora's a godsend. I can turn it on, pick my station-of-the-day and get going. It will keep playing music I like and I don't have to do a thing, except rate things Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down to keep it motivated.

Now if only I could get Pandora for my iPod... how awesome would that be? They should just sell Pandora-pods and you can plug them in, choose a station, and it will give you all the songs that would come with that station and you can give them Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down and then when you plug it in again, it transfers the information to an internet profile.... Could that really exist? Please, Pandora people?

PS: How classy is this? I did a blog about Pandora and then someone from the Pandora team commented on it. That is basically the coolest.