Happy MLK Day

My new job is great...I actually got a paid holiday today.  Too bad the inclement weather will be arriving overnight!  I just finished watching Bowling for Columbine, which I'm sure I should have seen a long time ago.  Michael Moore is brilliant.  I certainly wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of his ruthless questioning.  It amazes me the facts he throws out that really show how little sense some of our society has.  I especially liked his figures on how many murders with firearms were committed in different nations.  Even my 7 year old said, "The US has 5 digits."  Really pathetic - and she can't even count that well.  This is a must-see documentary.
The other DVD I watched this long weekend was The Ghost Writer.  I liked the plot, but some of the twists were difficult to follow, and the ending still has me perplexed.  I can't figure out what it all meant.  I will be calling on the film expert for a thorough explanation on this one.

I also sped through a book I've had around for months and just hadn't gotten to read yet.  The Sanctuary by Raymond Khoury was a page-turning, edge-of-your-seat novel.  I also really love how I can speed through a novel so quickly compared to the non-fiction I normally read.  The Sanctuary takes place in exotic locales like Beirut and Damascus and has the added intrigue of a mysterious symbol:  the ouroboros.
More on the ouroboros in a later post.

So much for my resolution to blog more.  Getting to bed early, like now, is top priority.

Busy holidays...

The holidays are over for another year...time to start shopping for next year.  I made both some great and some awful cookies this year, tried a gingerbread house for the first time (the kids ate the roof) and got some great gifts and treats.  The winner of the best gift of this year was my dad's girlfriend, Debbie, who really put some thought into my gifts.  I received the book Great Disasters in History (Parragon, 2007), with compelling chapters on plagues & epidemics, famine & drought, and disasters at sea.  Ah, she knows me so well.  I am working my way through reading a chapter here and there to savor the whole.  I did some reading over the holidays, but not as much as I'd hoped (even though I didn't buy the kids any electronic toys that make noise).  It took me longer than I thought it would to finish Keith Richards' Life.  It was not as interesting (in the trashy rock star way) as I thought it would be, but it did showcase what a talented musician he is.  I even went so far as to set Start me up as my ringtone.  More engaging was December 8, 1980:  The day John Lennon died by Keith Elliot Greenberg.  I really didn't know much about the event previously and this timeline account of the final day of his life was moving.  There was a full page peace ad in the Sunday NYT last weekend signed from John & Yoko; just an interesting sidenote.

As I am settling into my new position (and amazing office!) I've become even busier than usual, however I am going to make a concerted effort to work blogging into my schedule.  There's my new year's resolution.

Grey Gardens

Adam introduced me to another of his 'film picks' last week and I have to say it was the best one yet.  We saw the documentary Grey Gardens made in 1975 by the Maysles brothers.  It is a look into the lives of mother and daughter Edith Bouvier Beale and Little Edie Bouvier Beale, relations of Jackie O, who were living in a squalid estate in East Hampton.  It was a vouyeristic look into the lives of this once prominent society family, much like some of the books I have recently reviewed (see Wendy Burden's Dead End Gene Pool and Ivana Lowell's Why not say what happened?)  Grey Gardens could be equated with the worst episode of Hoarders (complete with cat urine).  It is truly enlightening to see how others live behind closed doors.  I went on to watch the movie version starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange, which very closely resembled the documentary.  I don't know which version I enjoyed more.  Upon further research I found this blog has amazing photos and background information.
People are fascinating creatures and it's always interesting to get a glimpse into other's lives.  A much tamer look can be found in the January 2011 issue of Marie Claire, which profiles international womens' lifestyles including how much they spend on shoes!  The article by Lea Goldman 'What it costs to be me' is on page 82.  A look into my life is certainly not as interesting as the women in the article.  My weekender for this weekend would be:  $6.00 for 2 loads of laundry and $12.00 for dinner with my daughter's Girl Scout troop on Saturday night.  Ok, maybe I'm not quite shattering the librarian stereotype!

Fragments of Marilyn Monroe

Fragments:  Poems, intimate notes, letters by Marilyn Monroe is a new book composed of snippets of the star's writings.  I loved all the photos between chapters which show her reading.  It seems uncharacteristic of the public persona of Marilyn Monroe, but she enjoyed leisure reading and expressing her thoughts on paper.  I was highly impressed by some of the titles that were found in her 400+ volume private collection (I suppose if we believe they were all read by her - I mean, sure, War & Peace may be on my bookshelf, but it doesn't mean I've read it).  A great deal of intelligence and critical thinking is shown by her introspective letters, poems, and organized lists, but like the 'Jekyll & Hyde' personality Monroe herself claimed to possess, these fragments also reveal her delicate emotional state and self-doubts.  The great aspect of the book's format is that the reader can see the documents in their original format, but read their text (typed on the opposing page) without having to decipher Monroe's script and scribbles.  This is a look past outward appearances to the real heart of Marilyn Monroe.

The Passage

You know the feeling when you are halfway into a book and you're not really sure you want to invest any more time in reading the rest?  That was how I felt about Justin Cronin's The Passage.  This book sounded great in the pre-pub summaries, and there is a really neat accompanying website Enter the Passage. This epic (over 700 pages) was exciting in the beginning, but quickly turned monotonous.  The reason it is so long is that Cronin tells this futuristic tale of viral beings in excruciating detail; at times with no need to do so.  The list of characters is also long, with detail and introspective views into their lives so that the reader really feels connected, but then characters are taken with the virus and the reader has to make friends with a new cast of characters.  I believe I was about 450 pages into The Passage when I decided I really didn't care what happened next, I just really wanted to know how it would end.  I read the 300 odd pages between this point and the end without much enthusiasm, only to find the ending to be unfulfilling and I realized I could have skipped to the last sentences to figure it all out.  This was also extremely heavy (another strike in my book - I prefer my workout time to be separate from my reading time).  I know there were several nights that I was pulling for the extra blanket at the bottom of the bed only to  find it weighed down by The Passage.  I struggled with this book, both physically and emotionally.  My opinion:  Wait for the movie.

A Motley life...



Tattoos & Tequila book jacket



I haven't yet read the acclaimed autobiography Life by Keith Richards, but am interested in doing so.  Instead this weekend I quickly breezed through the years of hard rock, partying, and drama that is Vince Neil's life.  His story, written with the assistance of Mike Sager (I personally think he must have done more than assist), is titled Tattoos & Tequila.  The lengthy subtitle sums up almost everything between the covers, 'To hell and back with one of rock's most notorious frontmen'.  As with other celebrity biographies that speak of addictions, the events described by Neil are at times comical and stupid and at other times, just plain sad.  Sad in the way that no one's life should be so controlled by substance abuse that quality of life becomes non-existent and so little care or responsibility is taken for one's actions.  I've previously read The Dirt, Neil Strauss' biography of Motley Crue, and although the unruly behavioral episodes described are of the same ilk, the stories in The Dirt were far more enjoyable.  But then I suppose it was difficult for Neil to recall with specificity the many blackout periods during his years of fame.  Of interest to any Motley Crue fans who remember when their music was good (and you have to be over 30 to remember that).

Modern Ruins

I first saw Shaun O'Boyle's photographs of Modern Ruins: Portraits of place in the Mid-Atlantic region while visiting the booth of the Penn State University Press at the PALA annual conference in Lancaster last month.  After a brief look, I thought this collection highlighting the Mid-Atlantic regions 'architectural sacrifice zones' (as termed by Geoff Manaugh in the introduction) would be of interest to PCL patrons.  The book is divided into four sections of buildings:  institutions (featuring psychiatric hospitals), steel (with photos of Bethlehem Steel's facilities), coal (an industry introduced as the foundations of 'hardy and industrious Pennsylvanians'), and arsenal (with stunning images of Bannerman's Island, near Cold Spring, NY).  This collection takes the reader to the present state of the past and is relevant to those who appreciate black and white photography, local history, and the progression of deindustrialization of the region.  I highly recommend browsing this new acquisition.