Robert Durick's Reading in 2013, second quarter

This is a continuation of my first quarter thread.

Here at mid-June I have Runaway Horses to finish,
Quantum, supported by Einstein's Mistakes to read for on line discussion,
Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Martian Chronicles to read and Bradbury Stories to skim for book group discussion,
and I want to get into Trapped In the Mirror fairly soon.

I still have most of the list from the beginning of the year.

My 2013 reading so far, probably all books, but possibly articles or magazines. The links are to the message in which I mention what I have read, and in that message there will likely be a touchstone.

January 4, The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt
January 18, Mary Stuart by Friedrich Schiller
January 31, Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

February 6, Anthill by E.O. NoWilson
February 11, The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
February 26, Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima

March 2, Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt
March 5, Titus Andronicus & Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare, edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen
March 14, Don't Get Too Comfortable by David Rakoff
March 25, The Iliad by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles

April 4, The Cambridge Companion to Homer edited by Robert Fowler
April 5, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
April 11, Drift by Rachel Maddow
April 19, Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
April 29, The New Yorker Book of Cat Cartoons

June 10, Vanished Kingdoms by Norman Davies
June 12, The Narcissism Epidemic by Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell
June 14, Runaway Horses by Yukio Mishima
June 21, Quantum by Manjit Kumar
June 24, Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Plays, concerts, movies, lectures, screenings, and any other entertainments I might want to mention with links to the messages in which I mention them:

January 2, Jack Reacher, movie theater, mainstream
January 3, Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away, 3D movie theater, limited release
January 3, Les Misérables, IMAX equivalent (Titan XC), mainstream
January 5, Les Troyens, Metropolitan Opera Live in High Definition, opera
January 9, Labyrinth, IMAX equivalent (Titan XC), one night screening
January 13, Zero Dark Thirty, IMAX equivalent (Titan XC), mainstream
January 19, Maria Stuarda, Metropolitan Opera Live in High Definition, opera
January 20. Rust and Bone, movie theater, foreign (France, Belgium)
January 26, Quartet, movie theater, limited release
January 30, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, 3D IMAX equivalent, mainstream
January 30, The Raw and the Cooked, museum theater, documentary
January 31, The Magistrate, movie theater, National Theater Live screening

February 2, Stand Up Guys, movie theater, limited release
February 6, Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013, Animation, movie theater, limited release
February 6, Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013, Live Action, movie theater, limited release
February 7, Step up to the Plate, museum theater, documentary
February 10, Lohengrin, museum screening from La Scala, opera
February 13, Die Hard, IMAX equivalent, one day and night marathon revival
February 13, Die Hard 2, IMAX equivalent, one day and night marathon revival
February 13, Die Hard with a Vengeance, IMAX equivalent, one day and night marathon revival
February 13, Live Free or Die Hard, IMAX equivalent, one day and night marathon revival
February 13, A Good Day to Die Hard, IMAX equvalent, mainstream
February 16, Rigoletto, Metropolitan Opera Live in High Definition, opera
February 17, Amour, movie theater, limited release
February 20, The Savoy King: Chick Webb & the Music That Changed America, museum theater, documentary

March 2, Parsifal, Metropolitan Opera Live in High Definition, opera
March 4, Jack the Giant Slayer, 3D IMAX, mainstream
March 4, Side Effects, movie theater, limited release I think
March 9, West of Memphis, movie theater, documentary
March 16, Francesca da Rimini, Metropolitan Opera Live in High Definition, opera
March 23, Dawn Upshaw and Gilbert Kalish, museum theater, live concert
March 26, To Catch a Thief, museum theater, revival series
March 30, The Gatekeepers, movie theater, documentary

April 3, G. I. Joe: Retaliation, IMAX equivalent, mainstream
April 10, The NeverEnding Story, IMAX equivalent, one night revival
April 13, Trance, movie theater, limited release
April 14, The Place Beyond the Pines, movie theater, limited release
April 20, The Sapphires, movie theater, foreign (Australia)
April 20, 56 Up, movie theater, documentary
April 21, No, movie theater, foreign (Chile)
April 22, Oblivion, IMAX, mainstream
April 25, Na Kupu Mana'olana, museum theater, documentary
April 27, Giulio Cesare, Metropolitan Opera Live in High Definition, opera (first act only)
April 28, Chasing Ice, museum theater, documentary

May 3, More Than Honey, museum theater, documentary
May 4, Mud, movie theater, limited distribution
May 5, Iron Man Three, IMAX 3D, mainstream
May 11, Jules and Jim, museum theater, foreign (France)
May 15, Une Estonienne à Paris, museum theater, foreign (Estonia, France, and, they say, Belgium)
May 18, Lore, movie theater, foreign (Germany, Australia)
May 19, Star Trek Into Darkness, IMAX 3D, mainstream
May 22, Pieta, movie theater, foreign (Korea)
May 23, 42, movie theater, mainstream (but running out of steam)

June 1, Frances Ha, movie theater, limited release
June 2, Fast & Furious 6, IMAX equivalent, mainstream
June 8, At Any Price, movie theater, limited release
June 15, Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's, movie theater, documentary
June 18, The Hangover Part III, movie theater, mainstream
June 18, Tai Chi Hero, movie theater, foreign (China)
June 18, The Internship, movie theater, mainstream
June 19, Man of Steel, IMAX 3D, mainstream
June 22, Before Midnight, movie theater, limited release
June 22, Kon Tiki, movie theater, limited release
June 24, This Is the End, movie theater, mainstream
June 25, The Untold Story: Internment of Japanese Americans in Hawaii, movie theater, documentary
June 25, Il Trittico, movie theater, opera
June 26, Yojimbo, museum theater, foreign (Japan)
June 27, Seven Samurai, museum theater, foreign (Japan)
June 28, The Bling Ring, movie theater, limited release
June 29, The East, movie theater, limited release
June 29, Much Ado About Nothing, movie theater, limited release

Notes:

January independent movies to see
February independent movies to see
March independent movies to see
May independent movies to see
Summer 2013 movies to miss

Books, and maybe CD's and DVD's, that I have acquired in 2013 so far. The links below are usually to the message in which I comment on the acquisition. There should be a touchstone in that message.

Books

1. January 2, Classics of Buddhism and Zen, volume 1 translated by Thomas Cleary
2. January 2, Classics of Buddhism and Zen, volume 2 translated by Thomas Cleary
3. January 2, Classics of Buddhism and Zen, volume 3 translated by Thomas Cleary
4. January 2, Classics of Buddhism and Zen, volume 4 translated by Thomas Cleary
5. January 2, Classics of Buddhism and Zen, volume 5 translated by Thomas Cleary
6. January 5, Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt
7. January 5, The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
8. January 12, Being and Time by Martin Heidegger
9. January 12, Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima
10. January 15, The Strangest Man by Graham Farmelo
11. January 15, The English Language by Laurel J. Brinton and Leslie K. Arnovick
12. January 15, The Maine Woods by Henry D. Thoreau and edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer
13. January 15, The Book of Enoch translated by R.H. Charles
14. January 15, The Conquest of a Continent by W. Bruse Lincoln
15. January 15, Herbert Spencer and the Invention of Modern Life by Mark Francis
16. January 16, A House for Hope by John Buehrens and Rebecca Ann Parker
17. January 19, The Language Wars by Henry Hitchings
18. January 26, I Could Read the Sky by Timothy O'Grady, photographs by Steve Pyke
19. January 26, Moscow, December 25, 1991, by Conor O'Clery
20. January 26, Soul Dust, by Nicholas Humphrey
21. January 26, Reading Music, by Marc Schonbrun
22. January 26, The Uninvited Guests, by Sadie Jones
23. January 26, The Secret Life of Pronouns by James W. Pennebaker
24. January 28, B.S. Johnson Omnibus by B.S. Johnson

25. February 3, Quiet by Susan Cain
26. February 3, Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander
27. February 7, The Art of Living According to Joe Beef by Frederic Morin, David McMillan, and Meredith Erickson
28. February 7, Agent 6 by Tom Rob Smith
29. February 9, Titus Andronicus & Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare and edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen
30. February 9, The Victrola Book of the Opera by Samuel Holand Rous
31. February 9, Opera People by Robert M. Jacobson
32. February 9, Fifty Years of Glyndebourne by John Julius Norwich
33. February 9, Opera edited by Rudolf Hartmann
34. February 9, Opera by David Ewen
35. February 9, Opera! by Karyl Lynn Zietz
36. February 11, The Iliad by Homer and translated by Robert Fagles
37. February 12, Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
38. February 19, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
39. February 23, A History of the Connecticut River by Wick Griswold
40. February 23, The Wisdom to Know the Difference by Eileen Flanagan
41. February 23, The Darwin Awards Countdown to Extinction by Wendy Northcutt

42. March 4, A Brief Guide to Jane Austen by Charles Jennings
43. March 4, Mapping the Lands and Waters of Hawai'i by Riley M. Moffat and Gary L. Fitzpatrick
44. March 6, Trapeze by Simon Mawer
45. March 6, Drift by Rachel Maddow
46. March 7, A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor
47. March 9, Don't Get Too Comfortable by David Rakoff
48. March 9, Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon
49. March 9, Man in the Woods by Scott Spencer
50. March 13, Countee Cullen Collected Poems edited by Major Jackson
51. March 16, Beloved by Toni Morrison
52. March 16, When I Was a Child I Read Books by Marilynne Robinson
53. March 16, Revelations by Elaine Pagels
54. March 16, Complete Price Guide to Watches 2013 by Tom Engle, Richard E. Gilbert, and Cooksey Shugart
55. March 23, The Ninth by Harvey Sachs
56. March 23, Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton
57. March 26, The Cambridge Companion to Homer edited by Robert Fowler
58. March 27, James Weldon Johnson, Writings, by James Weldon Johnson, edited by William L. Andrews
59. March 27, Chesnutt, Stories, Novels, and Essays by Charles W. Chesnutt, edited by Werner Sollors

60. April 11, Runaway Horses by Yukio Mishima
61. April 13, Red Star Rogue by Kenneth Sewell with Clint Richmond
62. April 13, Blind Man's Bluff by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew with Annette Lawrence Drew
63. April 13, What Money Can't Buy by Michael J. Sandel
64. April 17, Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden
65. April 17, 1493 by Charles C. Mann
66. April 20, The Decalogue Through the Centuries edited by Jeffrey P. Greenman and Timothy Larsen
67. April 20, New Beethoven Letters translated and annotated by Donald W. MacArdle and Ludwig Misch
68. April 27, Unintended Consequences by Edward Conard
69. April 27, The New Yorker Book of Cat Cartoons by a whole bunch of cartoonists

70. May 1, Lost Kingdom by Julia Flynn Siler
71. May 1, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
72. May 1, The Narcissism Epidemic by Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell
73. May 1, In Defense of Food by Michael Pollen
74. May 1, Meat by Susan Bourette
75. May 2, The Realm of Prester John by Robert Silverberg
76. May 2, Wild by Cheryl Strayed
77. May 4, The Cat by Edeet Ravel
78. May 7, Jem (and Sam) by Ferdinand Mount
79. May 7, The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
80. May 10, Google Secrets by Yvette Davis
81. May 10, Vanished Kingdoms by Norman Davies
82. May 11, American Science Fiction Four Classic Novels 1953-1956 edited by Gary K. Wolfe
83. May 11, American Science Fiction Four Classic Novels 1956-1958 edited by Gary K. Wolfe
84. May 11, Cather, Early Novels and Stories, by Willa Cather and edited by Sharon O'Brien
85. May 11, Cather, Later Novels, by Willa Cather and edited by Sharon O'Brien
86. May 11, Cather, Stories, Poems, and Other Writings, by Willa Cather and edited by Sharon O'Brien
87. May 11, The Seventeen Solutions by Ralph Nader
88. May 15, American Journal of Numismatics 24 edited by Andrew R. Meadows and Oliver D. Hoover
89. May 15, Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
90. May 18, The Toughest Show on Earth by Joseph Volpe
91. May 18, Opera Anecdotes by Ethan Mordden
92. May 18, Operatic Lives by Alberto Savinio
93. May 18, Opera 101 by Fred Plotkin
94. May 18, The Operagoer's Guide by M. Owen Lee
95. May 18, The Maestro Myth by Norman Lebrecht
96. May 18, An Illustrated Guide to Composers of Opera by Peter Gammond
97. May 18, Demented by Ethan Mordden
98. May 25, The Black Count by Tom Reiss
99. May 31, The Art of Happiness by Epicurus
100. May 31, Travels with Epicurus by Daniel Klein

101. June 5, Big Machine by Victor Lavalle
102. June 5, Wild Dogs by Helen Humphreys
103. June 5, Melissa Miller by Susie Kalil
104. June 8, Words for the Taking by Neal Bowers
105. June 8, Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood edited by Mary Strong
106. June 8, Something Wicked this Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
107. June 8, Quantum by Manjit Kumar
108. June 12, Einstein's Mistakes by Hans C. Ohanian
109. June 12, The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
110. June 14, John Milton by Gordon Campbell and Thomas N. Corns
111. June 15, Art As Experience by John Dewey
112. June 15, The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
113. June 15, The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer
114. June 15, Trapped in the Mirror by Elan Golomb
115. June 20, The Annotated Collected Poems by Edward Thomas and edited by Edna Longley
116. June 29, Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
117. June 29, The Most of P.G. Wodehouse by P.G. Wodehouse

CD's

1. January 26, Cold Fact, Rodriguez
2. January 26, Babel, Mumford & Sons
3. January 26, Sigh No More, Mumford & Sons

4. February 23, Love Ella, The Original Versions, Ella Fitzgerald

5. March 14, Strictly Jive, Chick Webb

DVD's

1. February 2, The Heart Is a Loney Hunter
2. April 13, BBC Jane Austen set
3. May 25, Memphis

Roger Ebert has died: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/movies/roger-ebert-film-critic-dies.html?hp&am...

Requiescat in pace Roger.

Meanwhile, moviewise:

Yesterday, I had other things to do in town, so I looked for things to do to increase the value of the drive. The trailers for G. I. Joe: Retaliation looked good in an action adventure kind of way. The review in the local paper made it sound good enough in an action adventure kind of way. I went to see it on an IMAX quality screen in 3D. The 3D was the after the fact kind and too often looked faked. There was some good gear in the movie but none so intricate that it needed especially high definition. The were a few plot holes, and it was an overly simple story. It was hard to keep track of the players. Overall I'm glad that other errands made the trip to town worthwhile.

Don't bother.

Robert

I loved watching "At the Movies" with Siskel and Ebert. So sad that they're both gone now.

From The Center for Railroad Photography & Art:



Mainline in rural Pennsylvania

Robert

From my friend gallery25, who thinks that I like trains:



Landwasser Viaduct Switzerland

I don't know where gallery25 got it.

Robert

I have little to say about either of these books which wrapped up my reading of The Iliad.

The Cambridge Companion to Homer, which I finished Thursday night, talks about the reception, ancient and modern, of the epics. How they portrayed the gods is taken up in one essay. How there might not have been a Homer, or there might have been one, or there might have been several is addressed. It is a useful but not very exciting compendium. Its greatest utility might be in reminding me that the spaces in The Iliad between spear jabs, spilled guts, and dashed out brains were actually filled by reflections on life and the Grecian lot. It also put me in the company of some fairly admirable people who preferred The Odyssey to The Iliad.

The Song of Achilles, which I finished Friday night, is a good enough novel. My interest in it would have been considerably less if I had not just finished The Iliad. It likes Achilles more than I do from my take on the epic, but it is a credible fiction presuming some things not available in the poem. There is some godly magic at the end, to resolve one character's lot, that seemed not to flow as it had earlier in the book. A couple of people in my book group had finished by the time of our Iliad discussion on Wednesday, and the group decided to discuss the novel in July.

Robert

Here's a nifty interview about the New York Review of Books to which I have subscribed for a long time.

Robert

Great interview. It's like reading a small slice of American social history. What amazing times.

Thanks for posting that link - great article.

I saw The NeverEnding Story when it first played in theaters. I remembered that I liked it. What I remembered of it was the bookshop and the dog faced dragon of good will. I thought that it was a moral tale about how far reading could take you.

One of the theater chains here puts on monthly revivals on their IMAX equivalent screen and was offering up The NeverEnding Story. Having liked it might not have made me brave the horrible crowds or make the trip to town, but that I had forgotten the bulk of it got me past my beloved inertia.

The crowd was horrible.

The movie is sumptuous in its telling. The dragon aloft is a little goofy, but otherwise all of the filming and effects are a delight.

It is a moral tale with what I think is a bad moral: you can get revenge in your imagination, and should. You can take the revival of a white horse, which died in an earlier fantasy, in a later fantasy as somehow a restoration, but the horse was still dead in the first fantasy. The bullies only go down in fantasy. Except that there is an undeveloped recursion theme that says that every layer is fantasy; we the audience made a fantasy of the framing tale. Are fantasy levels fungible?

I noticed a metaphysical failure a third of the way in that I meant to file away, but it is no longer in my memory. Suffice it to say that there are such failures in the film.

This is not a film that kids should be exposed to. But the parents who brought their incessantly chatty children to the showing last night don't care enough about their kids to do anything good for them.

Robert

Drift by Rachel Maddow is a convincing polemic (I don't see her on air, only in clips online, but I think that's what she does for a living) regarding the origins of a governmental war ethos in America and some of the harm that does to our country. She makes a couple of mistakes, that shouldn't weaken her argument, about the military that are the sorts of things that people not in an environment mistake about the environment. The situation is hopeless although she does give bulleted points at the end about what we should do; from my experience I expect we won't.

That the situation is hopeless should not keep people from reading this book.

Robert

A few people over in Le Salon... are reading Yukio Mishima's Sea of Fertility tetralogy. I read the first volume, Spring Snow with them. But the second volume, Runaway Horses was not available from BN.COM or the local Barny Noble stores. Then BN.COM showed that a Nook version would become available on Tuesday; I decided that I could try to read it on my new mini-Nook. But then, confirming its coming availability on Sunday, I found that the paperback version, my preferred medium, was now available. I ordered it. It was in today's mail. I should get to start it tonight.

Robert

I lost your thread...you changed from "Mr Durick" to "Robert"

I have heard mixed opinions, regarding Ms Maddow's book....since i don't watch her show, just an occasional video..i can't posit an opinion. I agree, the 'situation" is hopeless....Maybe i should call for the House Pistol and end my misery.....???

You'd better call for the house pistol promptly. The liberals want to take away your second amendment right to kill yourself.

Robert

Point taken......some fools would love to take away the guns i never fire. Those folks should take care..i'm a pretty good shot..

Hello, Robert
;-}

>13 Mr.Durick: I envy your getting to see The Neverending Story on the big screen. One of the things I learned while reading the book earlier this year was that Michael Ende was terribly unhappy with the translation of his book to film.

The situation is hopeless although she does give bulleted points at the end about what we should do; from my experience I expect we won't.
Bummer.

I wonder what he didn't like about the movie.

Robert

Here's an old article I found that explains it: http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20088527,00.html

Thank you for the article. I wonder whether I should try to find the sequels to this first movie.

Robert

>22 Mr.Durick: The sequels were entertaining in their own right, I suppose, but they're certainly not great movies and the first one lightly follows from the original (it really just gives it a jump point), and the other one is only tangentially connected. I "like" them because I love the original so much, and because they do have some fun & touching moments, but overall, you may not want to sully your NeverEnding Story enjoyment with them. I know the first time I saw the 2nd one, when I was young, I was thoroughly displeased, heh.

Thank you. From that I think I might just let chance determine whether I ever see them.

Robert

Unhappy with how I had done the week, I decided to leave myself behind and set out early Saturday afternoon for Saturday night and see whatever movie was starting most conveniently when I got to the multiplex across town. It turn out to be Trance. The movie was marketed as something of a mystery art film. It turns out to be an entertainment set in the art auction world. It is a pretty good entertainment using hypnosis as a theme to keep reality from being too sure a thing. There is full frontal nudity which is actually motivated by the plot.

I went back early Sunday afternoon to catch one of the others that I might have watched Saturday. It turns out that there is a whole lot of story in The Place Beyond the Pines; it took the full two hours and twenty minutes to tell it. There is a story about a motorcycle rider who meets his year old son. That climaxes leaving an expectation of wrapping up and going home; there are two more movies in the wrap up. The second one gets really interesting, and the last one does really wrap it up. In this movie it is not the dynamics of the characters that interests but the depiction of character. There is a lot about the nature of character like what is integrity? what does compromise do to integrity?

I think I did well with movies this weekend. I still have to do my income taxes.

Robert

PS A couple of subsequent thoughts: Trance was compared in a review with the dream movie of a year or two ago; I don't believe that the comparison holds. The trailers for Pines were mostly of Ryan Gosling and made the movie look iffy. Many people have commented here and there what a great movie it is. The review carried by my local paper made it sound like an okay but not moving movie. All of those notions come up short.

R

On Wednesday at my book group a fellow who had been in development in the nuclear submarine world mentioned that in the sixties a Soviet missile with a nuclear warhead aimed at the United States had been intentionally triggered. Certain checks in the system kept it from getting anywhere. He referred me to two books, both of which happened to be available at a reasonable price from Barny Noble upstairs from the multiplex.

Blind Man's Bluff by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew with Annette Lawrence Drew. The cover says that the book is about American submarine operations.

Red Star Rogue by Kenneth Sewell with Clint Richmond. This is a mass market paperback; how quaint. It is, the front cover tells me, "The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S."

I had noted that one of my wishlist books was affordably available there.

What Money Can't Buy by Michael Sandel. Sometime twenty or thirty years ago I began to wonder how the bottom line had become the bottom line. What had happened to virtue? to neighborliness? I am hopeful that this book addresses my wonder.

Robert

Oh I actually have a hardback of Red Star Rogue that I got from BN's "bargain" section for 6bucks a handful of yrs ago, not yet read it though.

Near Burns, Colorado:



Robert

There I was looking at the Timeline of someone on Facebook whose post I didn't understand. She had this:



Apparently it's in India.

Robert

oh man that is amazing! Thanks for posting it.

I'm reading Runaway Horses; a third of the way through I'm going to take several more days to finish it, so here's another picture:



Robert

>31 Mr.Durick: I feel like this today. I did get dressed, though. It was a lot of work.

I had to make a rule for myself when I retired. I must be dressed by noon. I may not get back in my jammies before 3 pm.

Mr D, I listened to you about Beasts of the Southern Wild, even travelling 120 km each way to see it, as I wanted to see it on a big screen and that was the nearest place that was showing it. It was truly everything you said, so I will now see The Place Beyond the Pines based on what you have to say. I was vacillating about it, for the same Ryan Gosling reasons you mentioned, but it is a mere 37 km each way to see it, so no big deal getting there.

It is fifteen miles each way to the multiplex where I saw Beasts of the Southern Wild and The Place Beyond the Pines; I went four times to Beasts. Because of the distance I usually have some other mission in town or across town or at that mall to help justify the travel; bus service between here and there works badly enough to say that it doesn't work. Fortunately I have enough errands, meetings, and all that I don't usually miss movies for want of an excuse to go, and I do drive a fairly efficient car.

I hope that you at least had a good cup of coffee wherever it was you went. I am glad that you got something from Beasts. I hope that you get something from Pines. I commented to my dentist yesterday that I thought it might be a guy flick and wondered aloud whether a woman would understand it -- you can report back on that.

Although it is not unique and powerful as was Beasts, Pines has stuck with me; as I recall scenes they give me a little emotional punch, and I think that I respect it more on reflection than I did right away. Different people have different takes on it. I saw one comment that you could watch the first part and go home. My take during it and even now is that it went from interesting to very interesting from the first part to the second part.

Have fun.

Robert

In Costco yesterday to provide some for a potluck and to resist temptation I pretty much succeeded at both. I did, however, come away with two books:

Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden. Well regarded by LibraryThing folk, this book also addresses one of my big questions, whatabout man's inhumanity to man. It was on my wishlist. There's another North Korea book that I have to remember to get.

1493 by Charles C. Mann. I don't think I had heard of this one, but I have his 1491 here somewhere and hope that it surfaces for a reading some day.

Robert

It was another good movie weekend. I managed to set a schedule that included two movies on Saturday and one movie on Sunday , and I stuck to it.

The Sapphires* is sweet as sweet is treated by serious confectioners. Four aboriginal girls are led into serious singing by a drunken but good natured layabout. There are some Melbourne ladies of the club who seem to be right out of the Jackson, Mississippi, of The Help† except that their funny accent is different. Slowly the white establishment loses its importance. There is some marvelous '60's music in this film, and the four girls are special women and allowed by the film maker to be special.

56 Up‡ is fascinating. If it were fiction it would be among the royalty of mimetic works. It is a documentary, a continuation of a series of films, one every seven years, documenting elements of the lives of these people from the time they were seven years old. I have not seen the earlier films, but now I may have a look to see whether they are available. I am also looking forward to 63 Up. People grow, people have their virtues, people have their trials, and each is unique.

No**, with a few scenes too personal for a documentary, is shot as if it is a documentary, documenting the advertising that went into the defeat of Pinochet as Chile's strong man. People who believe that their lot is fixed have to be convinced that they can accomplish something, in this case at the ballot box. Rather than explain things to them, the person working change has to coax them, often through entertainment. The two sides in the campaign came from two levels at the same advertising agency, management versus staff. A beverage commercial sets the theme. This film without mentioning it, perhaps without knowing it, also addresses the nature of the American electorate.

I hope in the next day or two to see an IMAX screening of Oblivion††.

I've also seen a bunch of trailers that I'd like to comment on, but the list is in the pocket of the trousers that are upstairs.

Robert

Reading and books have not filled the days as the movies have.

Thursday and Friday I read Shakespeare's Julius Caesar probably the first time since ninth grade. I think that I can read more closely now than I could then, but I still don't have much to say about it. There sure are a lot of often quoted lines in it.

Saturday's mail brought a coupon induced book from Barny Noble, The Decalogue Through the Centuries edited by Jeffrey P. Greenman and Timothy Larsen. I know that it got on my wishlist from a LibraryThing prompting.

Saturday night a woman who earlier gave a couple of us some books on opera came in with a couple of other books on music; they are discards from the library system or books that the Friends of the Library don't feel will sell. I already had Lebrecht's Who Killed Classical Music? so I'm saving that for my friend. I am keeping New Beethoven Letters translated and edited by Donald W. MacArdle and Ludwig Misch.

Sunday's visit to Barny Noble's store found Wild by Cheryl Strayed and the novel about the fellow who ended up on a long walk on the buy-two-get-one-free table, but I couldn't find a third that I really wanted and didn't already have. So I came away from the store empty handed.

I hope to get back to Runaway Horses tonight.

Robert

Hi Robert. I haven't been able to watch the original British 56 Up series, but have loved all of the American version. I think they are at about 28. Some of them are available to you tube. Such fun viewing.

No sounds fascinating - I'd like to see that. OK, I'd actually just like to see all of them.

Hope you review New Beethoven Letters.

Oh, the Up series is probably the most fascinating cinematic record of human lives ever made. There isn't another one like it, not yet anyway. If you can, I would recommend watching in order, as the impact of the changes is greatest when you know what preceded them.

What's also interesting is how the understanding of the enterprise changed too, as they accumulated the material. The sixties/seventies notion of a sociological document softens into something far deeper, even poetic. Life turned into art, as the observed become friends, almost kin. No one thought to turn the camera on Apted, but he is recorded too, by "the children".

I was able to brush my teeth as soon as I got out of bed this morning and get to the 11 a.m. IMAX screening of Oblivion*. The machinery, scenery, and architecture, and if you are a Tom Cruise fan possibly Tom Cruise, are the reasons to see this movie. There is a story, but it is not very special; neither is it bad. If you go for one of those reasons, you'll be happy with the movie. Some of the continuity fails, and the metaphysics is iffy. But there is a flying machine that flips over in part end to end that is pretty clever.

Robert

Re 56 up, I believe I have watched every 'up' programme from the second (14 up) onwards, as and when they were aired.

I must have been 9 when I watched 14 up.

As such I feel these people have been with me practically all my life. Consequently the ups and downs of their lives can really affect me. The mental deterioration of the one guy, and his subsequent attempts to deal with this is something that hit me and continues to hit me each time I think of it.

In terms of the programme taken as a whole, I don't think I could improve on Lola's description which I agree with completely.

My weekend theater experience:

The Metropolitan Opera Live in HD presentation of Giulio Cesare started early at noon forcing me pretty much to give up my day once I committed to it. I very much admired this production when I saw it on DVD starring Daniell de Niese, and I love Natalie Dessay who stars in this presentation. We got to see almost the whole first act before it broke. Miss Dessay did a good job, but it is really Miss de Niese's role. I had more to say about it (like how Cornelia's hair had wings, but she still looked regal and how high pitched the work is), but when it broke I stopped caring. I have a church function the night of the encore, so I'll miss it.

I finished this morning in town and went over to the museum theater to see Chasing Ice*. It had played here before, but I hadn't heard of it. There are three good reasons, each sufficient, to see it: it is beautiful and majestic, it is something one hears about but may have no other sense of, there is a duty to the world to understand this stuff. I believe in global warming and climate change, but I didn't have the imagery that James Balog and his crew captured. I think I even misconceived the Greenland ice cap. The movie is mostly about the ice, but global climate change is up front, and there is quite a bit about Mr. Balog and his mission. This one is worth looking for.

Robert

So I had too much time to kill between the failed opera and Saturday night. I went to the mall across town and rejected going to a movie because it would be too much rush. I spent a good bit of time at Barny Noble's. I was there for a book and a magazine (I wanted to read this article on paper). I came away with four periodicals and the book that I had gone in for:

Unintended Consequences by Edward Conard. This is a book extolling capitalism by a former managing director of Bain Capital. I happen to believe in capitalism as an element of freedom and the best way to get most goods from producers to users. I also believe that capitalists might very well rob us blind and peel the skin off the earth in their commodification of everything and so they need to be regulated (having been a regulator, municipal not federal, I have some real caution on that side too). It is something of a duty to hear from the other side. When I heard about this book I reckoned I should have it sooner rather than later, and it was as cheap in the store as on line. I hope I get to it.

When I got to Saturday night a fellow who frequently shows me what reading has caught his interest came in. He had a book with him that he offered to me and, quite explicitly, to my cat:

The New Yorker Book of Cat Cartoons. I have shied away from the current book on my reading list (Runaway Horses). I plan to take this one to bed tonight to see whether I can rebuild reading momentum.

Robert

Sweet dreams Robert

Robert

There is a place in town that does a twist on pop up restaurants. They scheduled some good sounding sandwiches for today, so I plotted to go there for lunch and thence to the museum for a documentary. More Than Honey* has glorious pictures of an animal that one can't feel like getting very cozy with, but which from this film one might feel very enamored of. There is a depletion of bees around the world -- in China it was from apparently totalitarian malfeasance -- which can seriously threaten our food supply (the rich will apparently get their favorite plant foods, insofar as the rich have favorite plant foods, from hand pollinated plants if we run out of bees). There is some hope, however, from killer bees, which are actually Africanized European honey bees. One beekeeper allows that Americans don't like invaders, not illegal immigrants, not killer bees; but his experience of the killer bees is that they can pollinate plants and do make honey as they shrug of pathogens. His concession to them is that he has to wear his beekeeping gear tending their hives.

One of the two sandwiches and the movie were worth the trip to town.

Robert

Not being able to get myself to read hasn't stopped me from buying books. On my way to my book group Wednesday night I stopped at Costco for my monthly stocking up and went by the book table:

Wild by Cheryl Strayed. I've wanted this book since I first heard about it. It came out in paperback and showed up on the Barny Noble buy-one-get-one-half-off table. There was never a third book on that table. Tales of getting out of despair move and inspire me.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. This was the other book on the bogoho table. It has elicited mixed reactions on LibraryThing all of which made me interested. There are between many and a jillion novels in my house to read; I may read this one.

Meat, A Love Story by Susan Bourette. One of two books I got because I like food, probably my favorite stuff to eat. That is I bought it on speculation, convinced by its cover.

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollen. The other. I'm not a follower of the author, but I've read one of his books, and I have another on my NOOK because it was cheap. So this was on speculation, but a it was a little bit informed.

Lost Kingdom by Julia Flynn Siler. Yet another book bought on speculation. Another tale in the big story of American imperialism.

Last week there was a coupon from Barny Noble compelling me to place an order. It was in Thursday's mail:

The Realm of Prester John by Robert Silverberg. All those odd, quasi-people in Baudolino were reported to have existed at one time or another. The story of Prester John, the Christian king of the east, was current about the same time. I would like to know more about those myths. This volume was mentioned on LibraryThing I believe.

The Narcissism Epidemic by Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell. Not everyone who steps on your foot and then tells you to watch where you're going is a psychopath. Among the others are narcissists. Having learned about psychopaths from a few usable books, I thought I would look into this narcissism business. I'm not a psychopath; I wonder how much of a narcissist I am.

I have another coupon to use by Sunday and some actual paper ones to use by the end of the month.

Robert

PS I guess it is really the buy two get one free table.

R

I've been putting animal pictures on a couple of other threads recently, but I began to feel like there should be one here. And now I have just run across this one:



Robert

>49 Mr.Durick: "Here, Kitty Kitty"

>48 Mr.Durick: The Narcissism Epidemic is something I should read, since i accuse so many people of narcissism...Come to think of it...i'd like to read most of the books in that post...

J

My regular Barny Noble store is going out of business early next year, perhaps January. The mall did not renew their lease preferring to put in a Ross Dress for Less store. The other store available to me has offensive customer service, so I will be rushing through its magazine section and out the door from time to time.

I came away yesterday, after asking whether the rumor was true, with The Cat by Edeet Ravel. I must have heard of this novel in reactions to it in the Early Reviewers program. I am familiar with the notion of being kept alive by the needs of a cat, and I want to see how that might be visualized by someone else.

Robert

Yesterday's movie was Mud*, a reckoning of several kinds of love and of love's trials. I had seen the previews maybe 30 times. I first thought it was likely pretty interesting; after about twenty times I tired of it. It was the review carried by the local paper that prompted me to see it. It is pretty good and probably worth a trip. All of the male characters are well motivated, and the female characters are strong in their own ways. Men have to work awfully hard at it.

Today's movie was Iron Man Three* (how they spelled it on screen at the end) in IMAX 3D. This was an okay but essentially hollow big screen action movie shot gloriously using high technology. It is curious that the best 3D is the least noticed 3D; that was the case here where things were full and round. The big screen did good especially around the container cranes. Deus ex machina accomplishes a lot in the plot. The bad guys are invulnerable for a while; then when it is time for the good guys to prevail, the good guys prevail. There are some plot twists that are interesting. Having suspended disbelief the charm of the precocious kid comes out. Tony Stark breaks a promise towards the end to Pepper, but nothing is said about it. A lot of things explode in flame that are not especially explosive or flammable. Et cetera. There is nothing to take away from this film, but it is gorgeously shot pictures of brilliant bits of metal and other exotic materials.

Robert

the smallest weird number

The local used book store was near enough my bank to lure me in. There were two novel's on the store's dollar shelves that caught my eye and came home with me.

Jem (and Sam) by Ferdinand Mount. I heard something about this book sometime, probably on LibraryThing. The book was hefty and clean.

The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud. I read an article about the author and her husband recently; I don't remember what it said. But it made her out to be a credible author.

Robert

One coupon order from Barny Noble caught up with another, and there were two books in the mailbox:

Vanished Kingdoms by Norman Davies. A history of European states that we have sometimes heard of but don't hear of anymore.

Google Secrets by Yvette Davis. I like secrets although I don't much like Google since I got my Android cellular telephone. I am not likely to give up using Google so a few secrets could help.

Robert

Jules and Jim* played on Saturday afternoon as one of a series of French films at the museum. IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes tell me that I should have liked it -- photography, story, and all. I was pretty sure that we were three hours into it at one point, but when it was over only an hour and three quarters had passed. It is a story about a believably unconventional relationship including a pairing of men similar to the pairing in Oliver Stone's Savages*. It just seemed to take a long time with a not very likable (sort of spontaneous to the point of exasperating anybody around her (except these guys)) woman. And then she settled the whole thing.

Robert

I've ordered books from Library of America before. Somehow I hadn't caught on that they can be a trial, so I placed an order when they sent me a discount offer. That order was on my porch without warning Saturday morning when I got back from my walk.

Cather, Early Novels and Stories by Willa Cather, edited by Sharon O'Brien
Cather, Later Novels by Willa Cather, edited by Sharon O'Brien
Cather, Stories, Poems, and Other Writings by Willa Cather, edited by Sharon O'Brien
American Science Fiction, four classic novels, 1953-1956 edited by Gary K. Wolfe
American Science Fiction, five classic novels, 1956-1958 edited by Gary K. Wolfe

I have for a long time thought that I must be interested in reading Cather. I remember first hearing of My Antonia with interest from an elementary school teacher. Sarah Orne Jewett was respectful of her, and I am respectful of Ms. Jewett. And many, many people on LibraryThing have said good things about her.

I was a boyhood fan of science fiction, and these works are from the right time. I think that I actually read Who about when it was new, and I've wondered whether anyone else had. Here it is collected as a representative work of its era.

I also got to Barny Noble's store late in the afternoon on Saturday with an in-store only coupon and a list of books from wishlist that were discounted less than 20% on-line and available at that store. After looking at several of them I came away with:

The Seventeen Solutions by Ralph Nader. Mr. Nader thinks that America's problems can be solved through a series of reforms. I would like to know whether there is hope.

Robert

Ah I love Mondays and reading about your weekends!

The American Journal of Numismatics is a hard bound annual anthology of academic articles on coins. It is sent to members of the American Numismatic Society, and my copy of volume 24, edited by Andrew R. Meadows and Oliver D. Hoover, was in today's mail.

Robert

From Trains magazine

Robert

The French movie from the series at the museum yesterday was pretty good. The title, Une Estonienne à Paris*, was unfortunately translated as A Lady in Paris, although the original title had a problem of its own. It is important that the lady of the film be from Estonia or perhaps a similarly exotic but European country. But the film is actually about two Estonian women, one a long time in Paris and one newly arrived to care for the elder.

The newly arrived one is a beautiful woman of a certain age, the bonafide Estonian Laine Mägi playing Anne an experienced caretaker with family that is not close. Jeanne Moreau, a one time beauty, plays a difficult woman who has lost all her family in Estonia and all of her friendly relations in Paris. Their meeting is difficult. They begin to come to terms with each other. That fails. The movie finds an adequate, a good ending, and we go home pleased.

It is a small movie so something like IMAX would be inappropriate to it, but I thought that the projection was a little grainy. It was not enough of a fault to reject the experience.

Robert

Yesterday's visit to Costco included my passing by the book table. There was Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel which has been on my wishlist since I first heard about it. I am one of the many fans of Wolf Hall, and I think I am looking forward to this.

Robert

I loved Bring Up The Bodies even more than Wolf Hall if that is possible. Enjoy!

Saturday's movie was Lore*, a German-Australian film set in immediate post World War II Germany. I was alive then, but I was an infant as was the character Peter in the film. Five children are abandoned by their parents, who likely would be tried for war crimes, and must make there way across Germany to their grandmother's house. They pick up or are picked up by a young man carrying Jewish identification papers; he has the wits to get them a long way. The elder daughter is responsible for the lot and changes a lot from the experience. We also get to see some of how Germany suffered, not all in a way we might admire, in the aftermath of the Fuhrer's death. The movie is wrenching and a hell of an artistic experience.

Lore is the movie to see, but many more people will go to Star Trek Into Darkness†. I saw it Sunday after church in IMAX 3D, and that's the way to see it because it is the images that attract in this movie. The reviewers say that this movie abandons what the franchise was founded on, stories about people. I wasn't going to see it until I saw that Zoe Saldana was in it. The 3D is among the best I've seen, up there at James Cameron level; that is you forget that you are watching 3D, but the objects are fully and weighty. There is some stuff shooting out of the screen, but it is minimal. There is a story, and it gets the equipment from here to there and justifies the fights, explosions, and so forth. If you've seen Lore the day before, John Harrison's (I think that's his original name) protection of his mates is bland, the development of Kirk's and Spock's friendship is bland. Fans of Star Trek will want to see this and not be too unhappy with it; I am not a Trekkie, but I am a fan.

Robert

Of course I went into Barny Noble's after the movie. I came away with three periodicals (one a special issue so the period may be undefined) but no books. I got to Saturday night, and John said, "Diane has a box of books for us; we have to go through them." So I have eight books about music, mostly opera that I hadn't expected. John got a bunch of books and some actual scores, which he can read.

Opera 101 by Fred Plotkin
Demented by Ethan Mordden. This is about divas.
Opera Anecdotes by Ethan Mordden. I didn't realize until I was entering these that I drew two books by the same author. I may already have another version of this one.
An Illustrated Guide to Composers of Opera by Peter Gammond
Operatic Lives by Alberto Savinio and translated by John Shepley. The publisher, The Marlboro Press, seems to think that the import of this book is not the operatic lives but that it is a translation from Italian.
The Operagoer's Guide by M. Owen Lee. Although I don't know anything about him, I think this priest is famous among certain aficionados.
The Toughest Show on Earth by Joseph Volpe.
The Maestro Myth by Norman Lebrecht. The one book that is not necessarily opera.

Maybe I'll read something from these one day.

Robert

The Korean movie Pieta* is violent, vicious, and, to my thinking, inscrutable. There are critics and jury panels that think the movie has a lot of merit. On the other hand I was neither entertained nor do I believe I have come away from it carrying anything that I will value in the future.

Robert

There are critics and jury panels that think the movie has a lot of merit.

I would take your word on a movie a thousand times over any so-called so-called professional movie critic, Mr. Durick.

Thank you. I think that the thing to do is look at what different people are saying and knowing some of those people well enough so that you can adapt their criticism to your needs. I think that it was Roger Ebert who rejected the first Addams family movie on the grounds that it was nothing but a sequence of Charles Addams cartoons. I thought that I could go for that, saw the movie, and enjoyed it. But I have known folks who reject critics based solely on the number of stars they give to a movie.

The critics have been tepid about 42*, and I put it off until it was no longer playing in the neighborhood multiplex. I drove into town today to catch it before it completely dissolved. This story unfolded in real life before I was old enough to know about baseball. In fact I haven't known much about baseball until the last fifteen or twenty years. I have however known Jackie Robinson's name for a long time. This is a story we, Americans anyway, should all want to know, and we should want it told to us simply and straightforward. This is a hard story, but it is not especially complicated. So a simple matter of history gets dismissed by some critics for being simplistic and even uninventive. Nope; it is s simple story with highly emotional points of interest that can be inserted in the story to grab us around the neck of our emotions. That is the good side of manipulation.

It was worth the drive.

Robert

this charming man

Robert -- I absolutely agree with you about 42 -- it is a genuine and heartfelt film that should be a part of the American film legacy. Not all movies have to be innovative and splashy and overly produced. Often good storytelling is most important.

Barny Noble sent me two paper coupons to use by the end of the month. I was going past the store anyway, so I thought I would go in. I got one book and one DVD.

The Black Count by Tom Reiss was on the new books table and turned out to be cheaper in the store than on line. It is well regarded here at LibraryThing and is history of a country I like looking at, so it is now home with me.

I got the DVD of the musical Memphis which I loved seeing on a movie theater's big screen. I've been planning on getting it for some time; I looked at the numbers closely yesterday and with the coupon decided finally to get it.

Robert

Requiescat in pace

I have had a lot of respect for the writings of Andrew Greeley, but on reflection I think that I may never actually have read anything by him.

Robert

Another order from Barny Noble prompted by a coupon:

The Art of Happiness by Epicurus. I read Swerve not so long ago. I would be an existentialist, but I lack the means, and lacking the means I was dying of it. So I became an Emersonian transcendentalist and stoic, sort of. The school that all of that is up against is Epicureanism; I am perhaps not an Epicurean because I have no friends. It is a respectable and well regarded school, however, and I should no more about its fundamentals.

Travels with Epicurus by Daniel Klein. Mentioned favorably on LibraryThing this book should illuminate the other. If I had noticed either that the book is a hardcover, not my preferred medium, or by the co-author of Plato and a Platypus..., a tepid little bundle, I would probably have put off buying this.

Robert

I first saw Greta Gerwig in Damsels in Distress and noticed her in To Rome with Love. I saw her again in Lola Versus which I rated on IMDb as highly as I rated Damsels... but which I can't remember (I rated neither highly but both as considerably better than Woody Allen's wretched Rome movie). Being a fan of hers I think reflects a specialized taste. I went Saturday to see her latest, the fairly well regarded Frances Ha* a female buddy movie. In the movie what's strange about what she does, she says, is that she doesn't actually do it. So the movie is a little picaresque at the same time as it's a buddy movie. But the affection of the two women comes across as real and wraps the movie up as something genuine in its entirety. I will see another movie on the basis of its starring Greta Gerwig, and I will continue to hope that she stars in something really top notch.

On the grounds that Fast & Furious 6† delivers what you paid for it deserves high regard. There're lots and lots of car crashes, a tank crushing cars and shooting at others, girls, races, fights, some humor, and a cross country runway that allows an airplane takeoff sequence to go on and on and on. I was a little surprised Sunday that I liked the movie as much as I did. There is no... none... not a bit of... substance to it. One viewer review said it was about family. No; that's the cover story. It is about all those things that it delivered on. There are also some luscious shots across London and a location in the Canary Islands. I saw it on an IMAX equivalent screen which the film used to good advantage.

Robert

The beautiful picture above got disappeared; fortunately I was able to restore it, and I hope it sticks. It is Leopard Dance by Melissa Miller.

Then it disappeared again, so I have copied it to my LibraryThing Junk Drawer. The picture is smaller which is largely disappointing, but it should stick.

The contemporary gallery at the museum I go to for movies is between the main museum's men's room and the interior entrance to the theater. Some weeks ago I found myself grabbed hold of by this painting. I love the light; I love the construction -- in front of the big original the stripes of the top tiger blend more, it seemed to me, with the branches than they do in this image or the book that I now have. A week later I was back in front of the painting and took down the title and the author's name. The painting is oil on linen, sixty inches by eighty inches.

I cannot find a page about the artist on line, but I found a book and ordered it from the University of Texas Press. As I was going out Wednesday I crossed over it on my front porch and took it with me.

Melissa Miller by Susie Kalil. The book is about 14 inches square and is mostly full of good color plates. Leopard Dance is in it, but I couldn't find it at stop lights because I misremembered the title. I think that she has done some other good paintings.

I was headed to the mall in which the bigger local Barny Noble sits. They had two books from my wishlist cheaper than on line. I didn't have to talk with anybody to find them, so I got them.

Wild Dogs by Helen Humphreys. This is a novel which I believe was reported on favorably here at LibraryThing, but I don't remember by whom.

Big Machine by Victor Lavalle. I'm pretty sure it was Darryl who drew my attention to this and to another of Lavalle's books which I have on my Nook.

I have two coupons to use by Sunday and a three book list to acquire immediately.

Robert

There was a so-so review of At Any Price* carried by my local paper, and it turns out neither IMDb nor Rotten Tomatoes shows much enthusiasm for the film. The newspaper review, however, made me think I might find something in it, so I went to see it despite something of a disinclination to leave home. I saw some of the clunkiness in it, and I understand much of what the on line sites find off putting, but this movie captures American character in a very American and very contemporary setting. There is a richness to what the moviemakers took on that is admirable, and I think that they captured character, character of course in the face of difficulty, clearly despite problems of continuity and lack of script polishing. I did not have to work my way through this picture. Its clunkiness notwithstanding I was entertained, and I recommend it.

Robert

PS You might be more pissed off than you are now at the GMO seed companies after seeing this movie.

R

In anticipation of a group reading in the 75 Books Challenge I bought Quantum. With a member card it was cheaper in store than on line.

My church book group is planning to discuss something by Ray Bradbury in August; that is we will each read the book we prefer, and we will all talk around one another in a gab session. Yesterday morning I placed a BN.COM order including, using a coupon, The Martian Chronicles thinking a little science fiction might awaken something historic in me. Not sure that that would be enough, though, I found Something Wicked This Way Comes in a mass market paperback at the bookstore; that was cheap enough for me to pick it up on spec. I wonder what it is like to read a mass market paperback. I also have Bradbury Stories and even know where it is. I wonder what I will have read by the time of the discussion.

So I got to Saturday night, and a friend came in with a couple of books he had culled from his library and thought I might enjoy. Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood edited by Mary Strong is a collection of putative letters with citations from wisdom literature, a self help book, which was first published in the late 1940's. Words for the Taking by Neal Bowers is an academic poet's tale of seeking a plagiarist who did him wrong.

Robert

>75 Mr.Durick: Yay! I can now see that beautiful picture!

> 78 I wonder what I will have read by the time of the discussion.
Me too. Sounds like you have a lot to choose from.

I have read a book all the way to the back end. It is Vanished Kingdoms by Norman Davies. A long time ago I had read his Europe: a history up to Napoleon and was happy with it (if it ever surfaces I will finish it). When the book at hand was recommended I put it on a wishlist, eventually got it, picked it up to read it when the other two books weren't compelling, and stuck with it.

This is a hugely expansive history even with the focus on the failed state. The long enough chapter on the USSR is told from the point of view of Estonia. There is so much detail here, all fascinating, that my kind of reading fails to master it. But having a detailed description of the ways in which l'Hexagone has not always been hexagonal brings some light on characters we have always heard about. King Ferdinand and Catherine of Aragon have real sources for me now. How southeast France is pretty much Italian is brought to light. The Balkans, Eastern Europe, and Northern Europe have swapped out sovereigns pretty often. The German source of England's nobility is made sense of.

There are a lot of generalizations that will stick even as the details sink away. There is, however, no one cause of the death of states although they all seem to wither after awhile.

I have a few hours before I look into what I will read next or return to.

Robert

I mentioned above that my church book group will discuss Ray Bradbury in August. The Martian Chronicles was in the mail from Barny Noble today.

In a separate package because that was the only way I knew how to take advantage of two coupons was Einstein's Mistakes by Hans C. Ohanian which I bought to read with Quantum mentioned in the same message above. One of my Saturday night friends had shown it to me; he had scored a hard copy from a use book shop.

Robert

Having heard over and over again that when you point a finger three point back at you but still seeing that there are things going wrong that I don't want to participate in I began to look at what might be wrong out there that I am not complicit with -- or to see whether I might somehow be complicit without seeing it in myself. I have read some on totalitarianism, both in history and in fiction. I have read some useful and readable books on sociopathy.

And a month or so ago I turned to a book on narcissism; I finished reading it last night. The Narcissism Epidemic by Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell is a fame seeking little narcissistic tract that merits finishing only if you have already started it, have seen a few facts, and feel a need to see what few might remain. I recommend that no one start on this one.

It fails mostly to find a rigorous subject. Although one in twelve people have an episode in their lives that amounts to a narcissistic disorder this book claims not to be interested in them (now it is only one to four in a hundred people who are sociopaths, and that number can sustain in interest in books about them). It is interested in the boyfriend who is self-absorbed and his kind. It can't seem to pin down what it means to have self-esteem, what the faults are of having self-esteem, and how it might be necessary to have some self-esteem to function. It treats some not so evil desires for luxury as pathological; why shouldn't one want one's own bathroom if one can afford it? It reduces family solidarity? The book hops around between anecdote and assertion without following much of a track. It is just barely readable.

Yet the authors are full of self-congratulation.

Bah, humbug!

Robert

PS Meanwhile I would still like to read a good book on narcissism.

R

PPS I am not a sociopath. I have from time to time been somewhat narcissistic; I will work on it, but I will not worry about it.

R

I ordered two books on the same day, but separately because I had two coupons. One got delayed a little by Barny Noble machinations, but the other got delayed by secret postal service machinations. I got one of them today.

John Milton by Gordon Campbell and Thomas M. Corns who sadly has no touchtstone. As much as I respect Milton I should know more about him. I hope that this book will be an adequate corrective to my ignorance.

Robert

Hi Robert - Some people think Trapped in the Mirror is an excellent book about narcissism, but it is written for the children of narcissists.

>82 Mr.Durick: Reminds me of the classic Charles Addams cartoon with Echo sitting next to Narcissus and Narcissus looking into the water: "Tell me Narcissus. Is there someone else?"

>52 Mr.Durick: A lot of things explode in flame that are not especially explosive or flammable.
My two sons and I went to see Iron Man Three yesterday afternoon. That sums it up pretty nicely. All those explosions kept me awake, though, so that was good.

Thank you, Merrikay. I will look into it. I really would like to read something more solid and more direct about the subject. I'd also like to know more about whether sociopaths can be narcissists and probably other ramifications that just didn't come up in the book I read.

Robert

Ms.Mom, I wonder whether any romantic partners of my youth might have asked me the same question?

Robert

I have finished Runaway Horses by Yukio Mishima for discussion in Le Salon... I may be coming into an understanding of Japanese imperialism that I couldn't have through non-fiction. It is a tedious lesson, but I want to know what goes on in the rest of the Sea of Fertility tetralogy, so I will likely read the next two novels eventually.

Robert

86 - Regarding whether one can be both - I don't know much about either of those topics (except through my own narcissism :)) but you know when you use the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual to formulate a diagnosis of either, you may have a client with features of both if not all, and there is always the catchall "Not otherwise specified" Of course that doesn't answer the question of whether it has ever presented. Now you've got my curiosity up. I'd like to hear what you come up with.

Course it's always good to remember it's all just made up constructs anyway. Just us trying to group symptoms together to help find out what works.

A history of Bergdorf Goodman's department store, a description of how it works, and who serves and who it serves could be very interesting. There may even be enough material in the movie Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's* to make a compelling documentary. The movie, however, is cut like a music video, except not as well, and nothing coheres. This movie stinks.

Robert

Upstairs from the movie armed with a list and two in-store coupons I found three books to come away with.

Trapped in the Mirror by Elan Golomb was the book I was most sure I would come away with when I entered the store. It is about and for adult children of narcissists, a category it hadn't previously occured to me to put myself in. I want to know more about narcissism and, of course, more about me. Merrikay recommended the book above.

Art As Experience by John Dewey. John Dewey is reviled by conservatives. I am conservative and revile the conservatives. I would like to know more about his thought, and I would like to know more about aesthetics.

The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco. This book was on the bargain book shelf. I like the author, but this book did not receive kind reviews. A few people on LibraryThing have liked it, though, and it was cheap so I got it.

The mail carrier had not visited by the time I left home for the movie, so I got to bring in my package from Barny Noble in the dark.

The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer. This is a book from my wishlist ordered because I had a coupon that I couldn't not use. Some people on LibraryThing have very much enjoyed the work; others have found it too dry. Perhaps I will find out for myself.

Robert

Six dollar admission on Tuesdays got me to three films, none of which is necessary:

The Hangover Part III* grows worse as I think more about it. I liked the first movie in this series. I didn't see the second because of the adverse reviews. I thought I might at least be entertained by this one; I pretty much wasn't.

Tai Chi Hero† was not as interesting as its steampunkier predecessor Tai Chi Zero‡. It was because of the earlier one that I made a point to see this one; it was a disappointment.

The Internship** is a simple, feel good movie done competently. There is no depth in its telling, but I was glad to have been entertained by it.

Robert

Since I came home from Man of Steel* I've looked at a few more comments about it. I had thought that it was almost universally reviled in the press and expected not to see it. Then I got this e-mail from a friend:

Robert, Superman is a big, big movie. The greatest array of cutting edge special effects ever contained in a movie. Ok, maybe I got carried away, maybe not. I found I was able to restrain myself from standing up at the end and yelling out "oh yeah", many weren't. When's the last time you've been to a movie and people cheered at the end? We got in for $22 last night. They accepted a free movie pass and thus discounted one of our tickets, plus the old guy discount. How cool is that. Have a great weekend! Tom

I reckoned I'd see it but immediately started thinking how I would tell him that the movie stank.

I liked the quality of the opening titles. The 3D didn't however always hold up; it often enough looked pasted on. Still the reason to go to this movie, and I urge upon all who can do it to see it in IMAX 3D, is to see it. I'm not going to analyze the story; I liked it well enough, and I don't care if it has flaws. I did see some action that didn't hold up to attentive watching -- if a superpower punches another superpower it sends the punched superhero careering through building after building; the same superhero can overcome the downward force of an immense world making machine, why can't he overcome the momentum of a punch? BUT, a depiction of violence can be glorious, and by golly there is glory in this filmmaking. I was rapt the whole way through. The landscapes, the machinery, the action were all splendorous.

Tom, thanks for getting me to this movie.

Robert

For some reason the system won't let me edit in a couple of commas around the 'however.' Nor can I add a PS that says that my geriatric ticket cost me fourteen dollars.

Robert

A long time ago someone posted a poem by Edward Thomas on LibraryThing, and it was interesting enough to me to put his The Annotated Collected Poems on my wishlist. Recently Tony H read the book and commented favorably on it. I went back to my wishlist and found that it wasn't, at least then, available from Barny Noble. It was, however, available from The Book Depository and at a very good price, so I ordered it, apparently on June 12; it was in today's mail.

Robert

On Friday I finished Quantum by Manjit Kumar for discussion in the 75 Books Challenge. The book is as much about the sociology of the development of quantum theory as it is about quantum theory itself. Furthermore it brings up the question of whether quantum theory is representative of reality. I am looking forward to the discussion.

Robert

Movies to be seen in the theater are piling up within a fifteen mile radius. On Saturday I saw Before Midnight* and Kon Tiki† on the other side of town. They were both pretty good but not super.

Today I was in town anyway and went to the art museum expecting to see The Hidden Fortress‡. The listing in the newspaper was wrong by three and a half hours, so nine of us went away. I may try someday to find it on DVD. It is supposed to be a model for Star Wars.

Robert

Catching up. Impressed with your movie list as usual. Too bad about the narcissism book at #82, I'd be interested in reading a good one about narcissism. Hope you have better luck with Trapped in the Mirror.

Was "Before Midnight" worth the trip?

It's hard to say, because I got other things out of the trip. It is fifteen miles away, and I don't think I'd have been especially happy if I had driven there, seen the movie, and come home. I also bought a couple of things at one store, checked in with my shirt store, saw another movie, and bought a Jamba Juice. Then I went on even farther for the evening.

On the other hand if I had gone only a few miles and reshaped my day to accommodate the movie, I think I would not have counted it wasted.

It is a very smart movie. Its drama is almost all in its dialogue, so it may lack some entertainment value. But that dialogue is rich, and it reveals the characters.

Robert

hidden on her forehead

Which reminds me, if I remember correctly, of an Odd Bodkins comic strip in which a character with a mark on his forehead was asked what happened. He replied, "I bit myself." "How could you bite yourself on the forehead?" "I stood on a stool."

Robert

This Is the End* is playing locally, and from the reviews I thought I'd enjoy it. There's plenty that's funny in it, and I was never tempted to walk out. But there isn't really much there, nor is it done especially well. I kinda feel I shudda gone somewhere for a cheeseburger instead.

Robert

Our church book group is reading Ray Bradbury for discussion in August. Each of us is to pick and read the book we each are drawn to. I finished Something Wicked This Way Comes last night. It was easy to read albeit a little turgid in language.

Robert

I didn't get moving fast enough yesterday to get across town for a couple of movies. So I caught the documentary, with some dramatized reenactments, The Untold Story: Internment of Japanese Americans in Hawaii at the local multiplex. I heard about the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II to the best of my memory from my sixth grade teacher in Massachusetts sometime in 1955 or 1956, but the story of internment in Hawaii didn't come up to me until the latter part of the century and then not much. This is, of course, something that should never happen again, but for it never to happen again we must know about it. The movie was informative though not great; I am glad to have the information it provides.

And then I drove across town, fearfully because that multiplex routinely screws up special screenings. I have seen the opera Il Trittico (I can't come up with a good link for this production; here's more about the work however: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_trittico) probably the Met Live in HD showing of a few years back. I could remember only bits of it, but I remembered that I liked it. As three vignettes it can deliver with some punch that longer works cannot deliver. There are simple morals to these tales, one of which is religiously complex even in its short telling. One man on a boat has marital problems; one nun is confined to a convent by her family for a moral lapse, and one sly man outfoxes his greedy neighbors. I still like this, but I remember the earlier production more fondly.

Robert

The museum is running a series of Japanese films. Last night I saw Yojimbo*. Set in a dusty town in the period when samurai roamed the country, this is a comedy about how one clever, strong man can baffle the mob, or in this case the mobs. There is plenty of violence in the film, but the samurai doesn't commit most of it though it is shown he is capable of it. I can see why this movie has held people's interest for fifty years. And I can see the universality in it. It came from Dashiel Hammet and went on to be a spaghetti western and a Bruce Willis flick.

I'm off to see Seven Samurai in a few minutes.

Robert

>>#107

Ooh, lovely!

>>#106

Awww...

>>#97

I've seen The Hidden Fortress and as is, its links to Star Wars are pretty tenuous: I gather that in the first draft of the screenplay they were much more overt, but were lost over the course of the re-writes. It's a great film, though!

Seven Samurai* is a legendary film. If I hadn't known that I would have enjoyed it but not regarded it as the high point of my movie going life. Samurai are recruited to the right thing pro bono. They aren't entirely happy about the lack of pay or status, but they go ahead and do it well. And so other movie makers have decided to ride on its coattails. Worth a trip, but almost as much because of its stature as because of its quality.

The Bling Ring† is about the modern teenager. It is as superficial as its adolescent subject. I see from some comments on it that younger people couldn't sit still for it, which is also revealing about that age group. Bling is not, to me, a cool word, but bling in this context is actually kind of interesting. There was some art in the houses that were robbed, but the great value was in cash and trinkets.

Robert

From the trailers I expected The East in the movie The East* to be a much bigger and more sophisticated outfit than the little cult it turned out to be. I expected bigger successes from the outfit leading to more challenging questions about right and wrong. Still the movie entertained and brought up questions about character, how it might change and how mutually sympathetic characters could differ.

I didn't know what to expect from Much Ado About Nothing†. It could have turned out to be a vanity piece. It could have failed in its modern setting. It worked for me despite my antipathy to anachronistic productions. It may have worked only as a sophisticated reading, but I didn't turn away from it. It played the humor in the script to very good effect; it is a laugh out loud comedy. And it is touching too in the false accusation of Hero. I had last seen this play in Kenneth Branagh's production, and I think it may be time to read it or reread it.

Robert

Joss Whedon was a guest on either "The Daily Show" or the "Colbert Report" plugging his movie. Apparently a lot of the film was filmed in his house. How interesting.

Yeah, I was trying to reckon the floor plan and the siting of the house, and I couldn't really do it. It's an impressive place even obscurely presented.

Robert

The Kurosawa series sounds like fun - always nice to be able to see movies close together when they do an event like this. Do you have plans to see any more of his movies?

I really like Il Trittico, the music is great . I've only seen 1/3 live though and didn't see the Met's version - maybe they'll have it on YouTube. What kind of production did they have in the one you saw?

I enjoyed Much Ado About Nothing also - it was a nicely low-key film with some good comic touches. Everyone was drinking all the time which I thought could explain some of the speeches and daffy plots and it also made me want a drink.

Enjoyed the lion pic. Have you already seen this one?

It turns out that The Hidden Fortress will be screened again Tuesday evening. I hope to get to it.

The La Scala Il Trittico had fairly simple (for the first and last segments) and static stage sets. There wasn't much motion although each segment was actually acted. My memory of the one I saw before was that there was more staging, and I preferred it; such memories, I have found, are not trustworthy.

I had not seen that lion picture. Thank you for posting it.

Robert

On Saturday I passed by the free book shelf outside the thrift shop of a church. Two books caught my eye and came home with me.

The Most of P.G. Wodehouse by P.G. Wodehouse. I'm not the hugest fan of Wodehouse; I prefer Saki, E.F. Benson, and John Mortimer when I need a fix of British humor. Nevertheless I like him enough to get a free book by him.

I've been meaning to read some of the Mitfords. Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate was on the shelf. It turns out that I already have a copy.

Robert

find me in lothal

What about Merghar?

Robert

sally and i drive along the shore