pretty to think so

so long, and thanks for all the fish

2009-09-14T21:03:00.007-04:00

Trust that I've been back and forth on this for ages, but after giving it MUCH thought I've decided that pretty to think so is officially on sabbatical. In short, despite the pleasure and joy of community that this wee little weblog has provided me for the past 4+ years, I have a life that - at least for the present moment - needs careful attending to and deserves my full attention.

How long will it last? Doves, that I do not know. But what I DO know is that if I cannot do something well, then I don't care to do it at all. So, when the time comes that I can devote more of my time and energies to writing things of wit, merit, and just general entertainment, then I will resume blogging anew. I still plan to post regularly on my beloved Don't Forget to Dance; however, I fear I may be done with personal blogging for the foreseeable future and I wouldn't feel right by you, my faithful reader, if I didn't drop a line to let you know.

So (and if you will), keep me in your thoughts and in your Google Readers, for this is not goodbye, but 'till we meet again. And UNTIL then, remember that:

XO,

Mrs White

2009-09-11T21:58:00.005-04:00

Or will it...

(Photo is of the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, and is via here.)

so long, summer

2009-09-04T10:01:00.003-04:00

Aye, me. It appears to be that time again. Summer's nearly gone, which means my life is about to return to a hysterical pace. Consequently, things will most likely be a bit slow 'round these parts while I try reacclimate myself to waking up before dawn, not going to the bathroom for an eight-hour stretch, learning 140 new names (though, truthfully, it's not so bad since about 30 of them will be "Katlyns" and 15 of them will be "Tylers"), and just generally trying to get my feet under me. I'd say I was excited about all those things, but...

Anywho, I'm going to be spending my Labor Day weekend camping in the wilds of Oakland County, Michigan. (He.) And we're going tent camping, which I haven't done in roughly ten years, so I'm pretty excited. No "glamping" for us, kids. There will be outhouses, meats on sticks, and wild beasties coming to investigate us while we slumber. I imagine it will be quite similar to how our early American forefathers camped, but with fewer Indian raids are more marshmallows. (Hmm.... marshmallows...)

Whatever your plans for the weekend are, I hope they go swimmingly, and I will leave you with the song that always pops into my head this time of year. As Martha Stewart always says, "a little Bananarama is always a very good thing."

Bananarama - Cruel Summer
Uploaded by zerofloor. - See the latest featured music videos.

(Damn, that video's ridiculous.)

summer reading, part 2: unaccustomed earth, the girl with the dragon tattoo, and march

2009-09-01T09:45:00.016-04:00

Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri

(333 pages, 2008 - paperback)

Jhumpa Lahiri (The Namesake, Interpreter of Maladies) is a writer of meticulously crafted, melancholic stories of Bengali Indians in America. Many of her characters are second generation Bengalis, so it comes as little surprise that identity, exile, acceptance, culture and family are common themes. In that way, Unaccustomed Earth - a collection of five short stories and one novella told in three parts - doesn't really break new ground. The stories focus on the family lives of first and second generation immigrants living in the East Coast, many of whom - despite their PhDs from Ivy League universities - struggle to understand themselves and those closest to them. They are precise, beautiful, and written with an expert hand; however, very similar to her previous work. If you have not yet read Lahiri (and you should) then Unaccustomed Earth is a wonderful place to begin, but for those already familiar, don't expect anything particularly innovative here. I'm curious what would happen if she'd stretch her wings to write about something other than Bengalis...

My Grade: A-

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson

(590 pages, 2008 - translated copy, paperback)

I adore a good murder mystery, and the late Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - though not perfect - is a pretty good addition to the genre. Investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist finds himself accused and convicted of libel after pushing a little too hard against a too powerful tycoon. Shamed and stripped of his journalistic powers, he accepts a job investigating the forty-year-old mysterious disappearance of Harriet Vanger, niece of one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in Sweden. Harriet's disappearance is a play on a classic locked-room mystery - she disappeared off a island that, due to a major auto accident on a bridge, was sealed off from the mainland. An intense search ensued, yet no body or clues surfaced, the case went cold, and was Harriet was all but forgotten. That is, of course, until Henrik Vanger hires Blomkvist to look at the case with a new set of eyes. What follows is a nasty little mystery full of twists, turns, and and heaping helping of misogyny.

Larsson originally titled this book "Men Who Hate Women," which is a terrible title for a book, however apt for the story he tells. With the exception of one or two characters, the men in this novel are hateful and violent, and several of them are just plain sadistic. The violence depicted in this book is enough to make many readers squirmy; however, I eat episodes of American Justice for breakfast, so that's not my big complaint. My criticism is that, although the middle of this novel was totally gripping, the beginning was tedious and the ending lazy. That said, trust that I will soonly be reading the hell out of The Girl Who Played with Fire, the second book in this trilogy. Larsson's writing may not be perfect, but he hooked me. He hooked me good.

My Grade: B-

March, by Geraldine Brooks

(280 pages, 2005 - paperback)

I must have been nine or ten-years-old when 'Santa' left me a copy of Little Women under the Christmas tree. It was love at first read, and I can't think of a book I've loved as well or read as often. And I know I'm not alone here, ladies. Little Women is one of the most beloved books in American literature, so writing its sequel is an incredibly risky endeavor. I can think of so many ways that March could have failed, but instead Brooks managed to not only capture Alcott's magic, but add depth and dimension to her classic novel. Perhaps it's because Brooks - rather than focusing on the March children - decided to tell an entirely new version of the story by focusing on the family's patriarch instead.

March is the story of Mr. March, an ardent abolitionist who volunteers himself as a chaplain in the Union army at the "ripe old age" of 43. March's source material offers very little of Mr. March's Civil War experience other than a few upbeat letters written before an illness forced him to prematurely return home. Brooks takes these vague details and uses them to create a masterful piece of historical fiction. Unlike the version in Alcott's original, this Mr. March is flawed, vulnerable and fully fleshed-out. And unlike many Civil War stories, Brooks's characters are a far cry from their Uncle Tom's Cabin-esque stereotypes. I normally shy away from historical fiction, but March breathes life into what can be a dense and stale genre. March won the Pulitzer Prize in 2006, and it absolutely deserved it. I cannot recommend this novel enough.

My Grade: A

the question that should not be asked

2009-08-31T10:45:00.006-04:00

A brief conversation between two strangers, overheard inside a public restroom:

Woman 1: 'Scuse me - you pregnant?

Woman 2: Nah. Just fat.

Woman 1: Oh. (Pause) I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

(Interminable, awkward silence while I stand between them at the sinks, struggling to wash my hands without laughing.)

Woman 1: But really, now. You sure you ain't pregnant?

Woman 2: (Silent stink eye)

random posts of pretty

2009-08-25T12:19:00.008-04:00

Even if you're already getting a bit tired of listening to "Two Weeks" off of Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest (though I, for one, am not), I'd still strongly encourage you to watch this GORGEOUS animated fan video made by some fella named Gabe Askew. I've watched it so many times today I'm surprised I didn't break the Internet. Someone had the time, will, and ability to make this for free and in his spare time, and to that I say, "YES." Love, lurve, squee...!

(Via dooce)

bottle drama

2009-08-24T10:06:00.008-04:00

Oh noes. The tofu hit the fan in my house after discovering that the lining in my SIGG water bottle - which I switched to after discovering my old Nalgene bottle contained bisphenol-A - ALSO contains BPA. Arg!

According to SIGG, all bottles manufactured after August of 2008 contain no BPAs, and bottles manufactured before that date contained some sort of chemical magic that bonded the BPAs so well that they didn't leach into the water. Hence (according to SIGG), all bottles should still be considered safe. HOWEVER, for a company that touted itself as the safe alternative to plastic water bottles and made loads of money selling children's bottles to scared parents, I am disgusted and appalled at this admission, and can no longer support this company.

While it's true that no one really knows to what extent BPAs are dangerous, they have been proven to hurt monkeys, which means they are most likely hurting me. And while it's also true that I am probably being inundated with BPAs on a daily basis since it's one of the most commonly used chemicals in the world, that doesn't mean that I need to knowingly increase my exposure, especially if I want children.

So, what to do about all this? First, if you are unsure whether or not your current SIGG's lining contains BPAs, then lookie here:

As you can see, there's a very clear color difference between the old liners and the new, (supposedly) BPA-free ones. Next, if you - like me - have made the unpleasant discovery that your bottle contains one of the old liners, then there's a few things you can do about it. SIGG is offering to replace old bottles with new ones at their expense. If you choose to go this route, you can email them directly here. I am considering a free switch, however, I also feel betrayed by this company and concerned with their lack of transparency, so I'm leaning towards recycling my old bottles and replacing them with a stainless steel version.

Baying Hound, a company out of Columbus, Ohio, is currently running a SIGG replacement program. Mail your old bottles to them (they will either recycle them or return them to SIGG), and they will mail you a 40% off coupon good for any of the stainless steel bottles they sell. I'm liking the Earthlust line. They are entirely BPA and aluminum free, contain a naturally safe unlined interior, are made with food-grade stainless steel, contain non-toxic paint, and the company is based in San Francisco, so you'd be supporting an American company. Also, they're gorgeous:

This is probably the route that I will go. (Orange birdie bottle, I got my eye on you...)

Am I making a big deal out of this? Perhaps. Am I throwing good money after bad? Maybe. However, the health of my family and friends is important to me, and since I turned a lot of folks on to SIGG in the first place, I feel obligated to share my concerns with you. From the sounds of it, the lining in the new SIGG bottles are safe, however the company won't share the recipe for their lining (supposedly due to fears of Chinese counterfeiters), so who can really be sure? Bottom line - I feel duped by this company and obligated to search out and share some options with my fellow SIGG users. Be warned. Be well.

(Bottle lining comparison image via Tree Hugger and initial H/T to The Consumerist.)

summer reading, part 1: the yiddish policemen's union, atonement, and new moon

2009-08-21T10:02:00.016-04:00

Seeing how my reading of books has recently far out-paced my reviewing of them, I'm attempting to catch up with three mini reviews today and three more to follow shortly. Mea culpa for my tardiness, and enjoy your weekend, sweetness.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon

(418 pages, 2007 - paperback)

You may remember that I finally read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay last summer and loved it so much that it's now safely on the short list of my all-time favorite books. Eager to read more Chabon this summer, I dusted off my unread copy of The Yiddish Policemen's Union and hoped that it was at least half as good as "Kavalier and Clay." And half as good is about right.

Perhaps the best thing about this book is its premise. The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a noir murder mystery set in an alternate world where Jewish refugees have set up camp in Sitka, a long strip of land along Alaska's panhandle, after the 1948 collapse of the state of Israel. Although the settlement is a massive success, the land is merely on loan from the U.S. government, so when the government suddenly decides to let the lease expire, the Jews of Sitka find themselves turned away from yet another home.

As the novel begins, Reversion is just around the corner and washed-up homicide detective Meyer Landsman has discovered that a murder has taken place in the flea-bitten hotel he's been living in since his divorce. Perhaps because every aspect of Landsman's life has turned disastrous, he becomes obsessed with solving the murder of his neighbor - a former chess prodigy who was once widely thought to be the Messiah. It's a mystery that no one seems to want solved but Landsman, but with little else to live for, it's a mystery that Landsman feels he must solve regardless the cost.

Again, the best thing about The Yiddish Policemen's Union is how imaginative it is, though that's hardly the only thing its got going in its favor. It's also quite funny in parts, a poignant love story, and a nice little mystery. Does it reach the heights Chabon achieved with "Kavalier and Clay"? No. But is it worth your time just the same? Sure. I'd say so.

My Grade: B

Atonement, by Ian McEwan

(351 pages, 2001)

Ian McEwan is one of those authors I've long been embarrassed at having never read, so when I found a hardcover copy of Atonement on sale for $2 at a used book store, I figured his time had finally come. And wow. I've been missing out.

By now I'm sure that most of you have seen the recent film adaptation of McEwan's novel, so I won't bother with too much plot summary. Basically, 13-year-old Briony Tallis, a girl who lives and breathes stories, is confused by something she sees between her sister Cecilia and Robbie Turner, the housekeeper's son. When something much more deviant happens later that evening, Briony points an accusing finger at innocent Robbie and spends the rest of her life trying to atone for her crime.

Since Atonement was such a wonderful film, I almost made the mistake of passing on the source material. How I forgot the golden rule that the book is almost definitely better than the movie, I do not know. McEwan's Atonement is a masterpiece - gorgeously written, a successful experiment of structure and perspective, and a impressively accurate portrayal of the inner workings of a thirteen-year-old girl. Additionally, it's a true testament to the author's storytelling abilities that, having seen the film, I already knew what was coming, and yet I still found the plot absolutely engrossing. Simply put, Atonement is a freaking great book. There's only so many ways I can say it.

My Grade: A

New Moon, by Stephanie Meyer

(563 pages, 2006 - paperback)

Say what you will about me, but I ain't no book snob. I will read almost anything. I guess I'd rather be a part of the conversation than be able to claim some sort of literary purity. Enter New Moon. Now, if you ask my students about New Moon, they'd probably say something like, "Squee! Team Edward! Team Jacob! Like, ZOMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" But they're largely crazy people, so let me lay some truth on you instead.

Twilight is not a very good book for reasons I've already adequately spelled out here. But New Moon? Well, it's even worse. Meyer's writing is just as awful in this second installment, but heroine Bella is even more annoying and (I can't believe I'm saying this, by the way) the whole thing suffers from a long absence of Edward in all of his dreamy, glittering twee glory. Werewolf Jacob tries to replace him, but Edward proves to be - embarrassingly enough - irreplaceable. The Cullens are the Twilight saga, and if you send them out of town for much of the book, then New Moon is the result - boring filler while we wait for Edward to stop pouting and resume saving his bland girlfriend's life every couple of hours.

My Grade: D+

favorite songs of '09: gossip's "2012"

2009-08-19T17:21:00.009-04:00

Ugh. So. I had a fairly lengthy post in mind for today, but then I went and waaaay overdid it at the gym; consequently, I haven't been able to do much more than laze around my house, whining like a little punk. I blame Beth Ditto. Working out while listening to "2012" gave me the very false notion that my abs could handle the most terrible trial I put them through today. Lessons were learned, friends. Lessons were most certainly, most painfully, most nauseatingly learned...

(Please note that this video is the best of what was available to me, and although the sound quality is surprisingly good for a bootleg, I really wish it zoomed in closer on the band. If you haven't seen it, then trust that watching Beth Ditto work a stage is a marvelous thing.)

feeling crafty: a quick fix for mirrored closet doors

2009-08-18T11:50:00.010-04:00

The real estate market was very different five years ago when my husband and I bought our home. Back then, people were actually buying AND selling homes. For a profit, even. Ah, those salad days! My eyes; they mist....

The drawback to a healthy market, however, is that we had to make a few sacrifices if we wanted to buy a decent home with our limited resources. When we finally settled on our current home, it wasn't without compiling a fairly sizable list of things we wanted to fix, change, and replace as soon as our budget allowed. Now, five years later, we've managed to cross many projects off of that list, but the list was long enough that several cosmetic changes had to be given such low priority that I wasn't sure we'd ever get to them. One of those such projects was replacing the "delightfully" 80's-riffic mirrored closet doors that someone thought would look good in our dining room. When I first saw them, my husband and I both agreed that we had to kill that tacky and quick, but then roofs had to be repaired and rooms had to be painted and...well...my ugly mirrored doors were relegated to the "perhaps we can learn to live with it" list.

Fortunately, something snapped in me this summer, and I decided that I did NOT have to roll over and accept fug in my home! Setting out to find a cheap, easy way to beautify my dining room eyesore, I happened on this from IKEA and I knew I could do something with it.

And voilà!:

Fugly no more.

Because I am a terribly impatient perfectionist (an absolute train wreck of a combination), this project took considerably more time than it should have, but if you have mirrored doors and you'd like to try this project then know that it really can be done both cheaply and relatively quickly. I, however, waaay overbought my Amorf Frost due to a combination of poor planning, a mistaken belief that this was a one-woman project, and IKEA's maddeningly vague pictorial directions. So please, learn from my mistakes.

1) If you want to copy my design, then you can accomplish it with four rolls of the Amorf Frost -which, at $4.99 a roll, should make this project run less than $20. 2) I recommend using a straight razor to cut the product, as scissors don't produce nearly as clean a line. 3) Hanging the paper is not a one-person job. Don't even attempt it without a second pair of hands. 4) Before applying the frosted paper, make sure your mirror is impeccably clean, as the frost is pretty unforgiving. 5) Finally, but most importantly, you will need to DRENCH your mirror (or window) with water before applying the product. Failure to do this caused me lots of wasted time, money and a few choice curses at Swedish illustrators.

Do all this, and you should be able to modernize your closet doors in an afternoon for $20-25. Well worth the time and effort, if you ask me.

random posts of pretty

2009-08-17T14:50:00.008-04:00

I'm looking at the date stamp on my last post and realizing that it's been an abnormally long time since last we spoke, and for no particularly good reason. Sorry about that. I wish I could say it was because I was doing all sorts of fascinating things in fascinating places, but the truth is that I've mostly been catching up on the second season of Mad Men and working on some household projects I'd like to get squared away before work summons me back. Fascinating stuff, to be sure. I do, however, have lots and lots of books to tell you about, but while I muster up the energy for what's sure to be a monster literary post, why don't you take a look at CG illustrator Macoto Murayama's flower illustrations. They look a bit like floral cyborgs. Floral cyborgs are purty.

(Via)

r.i.p., john hughes

2009-08-07T10:16:00.006-04:00

As any good child of the 80s should, I adore John Hughes, and I honestly can't think of a single director who held a stronger influence over me during my formative years. Watching his movies as a child helped prepare me for what my teenage years would bring: heartache, confusion, frustration, social conflicts, and wily attempts to outsmart my high school principal. Wherever he is now, I hope he is well.

random posts of pretty: threadcakes!

2009-08-06T14:07:00.020-04:00

On a lighter note, have you seen any of the submissions for Threadless's cake competition? As a collector of Threadless tees and a lover of cake, it goes without saying that I'm a fan. These six caught my fancy, but more confectionery awesomeness can be found here.

Bye Bye Apocalypse:

We Were Tomatoes:

The Apple:

Byebi:

Fail:

Bird Migration:

love me

2009-08-06T09:49:00.013-04:00

I just spent the last hour or so pouring over Maisie Crow's Love Me, a photo essay of a 17-year-old girl growing up in extreme generational poverty in a small town in Southeast Ohio. Crow recently earned a Ian Perry award for her project, which she describes as an exploration of a young girl's "coming of age in an environment that lacks the emotional and financial resources to facilitate her growth into adulthood." To say that the project is unsettling is probably an understatement, but having lived in a poor little town in Southeast Ohio I felt a certain sort of compulsion to peruse "Autumn's" (not her real name) story.

Although they weren't in my circle of friends, I most certainly knew girls like Autumn - thirteen-year-old girls who already smoked, lived on Doritos and soda, bounced from one crappy boyfriend to another, fought a lot, and who already seemed trapped. They scared me at the time, but as an adult what I mostly feel for those girls is sympathy. It's certainly possible to break a cycle of deep, generational poverty, but it's also a tremendously difficult thing to do.

Fortunately, my time in Southeast Ohio was a far cry from Autumn's life - we lived in a fairly nice house, my brother and I attended Catholic school, and my friends mostly came from well-educated, middle class households - but when you live in that part America, extreme poverty is never more than a few minutes in any direction. For a variety of reasons, it's a place I'm happy to have lived, but it's a place that I'm even happier to have left behind.

(Via Jezebel)

favorite songs of '09: iron and wine's "love vigilantes"

2009-08-05T13:41:00.005-04:00

I simply cannot get enough of Iron and Wine's cover of New Order's "Love Vigilantes." You can find it on Around the Bend - a brilliant collection of previously unreleased singles and b-sides that came out a few months ago. The whole album is lovely, but this song in particular is the bee's knees. Oh, la.

random posts of pretty

2009-08-05T13:07:00.004-04:00

We saw some of the strangest, most beautiful street art while in Valencia. It's like every corner we turned there was a mural painted on the wall of a building lining some random alley. And no, no story behind this. I just love me some street art....

book review: eeeee eee eeee, by tao lin

2009-08-04T13:33:00.006-04:00

As best as I could figure, Tao Lin's Eeeee Eee Eeee (the sound dolphins make) is the story of Andrew - a Dominoes Pizza delivery guy who pines for his ex-girlfriend while fantasizing about making a connection with his best friend's sister. Either due to boredom, depression, insanity, or the possibility that he's actually fallen into the proverbial rabbit hole, Andrew coexists with talking animals and aliens who, like Andrew, seem to every bit as bored and depressed as he is. Cameos are also made by Elijah Wood and Sean Penn who both meet violent ends at the hands of murderous dolphins, and the novel climaxes with Andrew, "the president", a dolphin, a bear, a moose, an alien and Salman Rushdie sharing an existential conversation over a vegan meal in a sushi restaurant.

Right. To be honest, I have no idea what to make of this book. If I had to guess, the author is attempting to play around with ideas of truth, sincerity, human connections, and how we can and often do delude ourselves. BUT, it also very well may be about absolutely nothing at all. Eeeee Eee Eeee reads a bit like a Salvador Dali painting, and my reaction to Lin's work is about the same as my reaction to The Persistence of Memory - I sort of enjoyed spending an hour in crazyland, but damn if I can tell you what it all was supposed to mean.

Eeeee Eee Eeee

Tao Lin

2007 (paperback), 211 pages

random posts of pretty: su blackwell's book-cut sculptures

2009-07-30T19:42:00.009-04:00

Although the bibliophile in me loathes the idea of cutting up a book, Su Blackwell's fantastic book-cut sculptures are pretty enough to make me look the other way. Of course, the fact that there are several Alice in Wonderland pieces in her collection weighs heavily in her favor...

(Via Jezebel)

today in nightmare-inducing photographs

2009-07-30T19:17:00.005-04:00

When I was eleven-years-old I was stung by a jellyfish while swimming in the Atlantic Ocean, and it was - at least at the time - the single most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me. That one little sting bashed my previously held dream of being a marine biologist, as my fear of sea creatures soon outweighed the prettiness of sea shells. I refused to enter the ocean long afterward, and to this day I'll only go up to my knees in salt water, shuffling the whole time for fear of stingrays.

So, needless to say this National Geographic picture along with the news that 1) jellyfish such as these exist, and that 2) experts are warning that "another giant jellyfish invasion may be on the horizon" all collected to send a cold shiver up and down my spine:

Bloody terrifying. My only solace is that they seem to be focusing their assault on the coast of Japan, and that Japan isn't Michigan. Which is where I live. Far, far away.

(Oh who am I kidding. I'm not sleeping tonight.)

(Via Boing Boing)

weekly book review: sharp objects, by gillian flynn

2009-07-28T22:26:00.010-04:00

Firstly, it's been a bit since I've posted on what I've been reading, although that is in no way a reflection of my recent reading habits. I've actually read quite a bit this month. I just haven't written about any of it. So, in order to catch up I'm planning on posting shorter, more frequent reviews for the next couple of weeks or so. I'm talking, like, straight to the point reviews. No messing around. 250 words or less. (And if your response to that is, "About time, windbag!" then, well, that's a bit mean, don't you think?)

I'll begin with Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects, a book which, to put it mildly, disappointed. I normally try to be especially kind to first-time novelists, but this book really pissed me off for some reason. No, scratch that. It pissed me off for several, very sound reasons. To list: I hated how Flynn, a woman, wrote about women - like she had to make them extra gritty, boozy, troubled, violent, and hypersexual in order to prove she can attract male readers. Even for a pulpy murder mystery, the characters risk absurdity in their level of caricature. It's sloppily edited, entirely too heavy-handed in its use of "sharp objects", and the plot twists are both absurdly convenient and glaringly obvious. In fact, I had the murderer pegged by page 37, but read the other 235 pages anyway in the hopes that I was wrong. Unfortunately, I wasn't. The plot really was that clunky and obvious, and yet Stephen King gave it a very favorable blurb. (Because Flynn and King both write for Entertainment Weekly, perhaps? Book politics. Blech.)

I have no doubt that Sharp Objects could make a passable made-for-T.V. movie, but that's hardly a compliment, and although I realize that saying all this makes me sound a bit cruel, I feel obligated to tell you the truth. This book did more than just disappoint me. It insulted my intelligence. I'd like to spare others a similar fate.

Sharp Objects

Gillian Flynn

2006, 272 pages

(not so) random posts of pretty

2009-07-27T12:21:00.018-04:00

Thanks to my recent trip to Barcelona where his work is everywhere, Antoni Gaudi has become my all-time favorite architect. I got a chance to see some of his houses and, of course, the Sagrada Familia, and it all just blew me away. Pictures truly can't do justice to his epic, beautiful, strange designs. And while it was all amazing, my favorite had to be Park Güell.

In 1900, Gaudi was commissioned to build a neighborhood of luxury houses set atop and away from the crime and pollution of the city center. Enough lots were available to build as many as sixty homes, but when the model home was unveiled, the Barcelona aristocracy was shocked and appalled at what Gaudi had created, so only two homes were ever built and only one was sold, making it a massive failure. I suppose it's easy to imagine how folks in 1910 might not have been able to wrap their heads around Gaudi's design, however today the park teems with tourists, the dragon sculpture outside one of the homes has become a symbol of Barcelona, and I can imagine folks would drop some major cash if the houses became available for private sale.

Of course, I loved everything about the place. It's like being in a fairytale dream word created by a mildly mad man...

a very european tale

2009-07-23T22:03:00.006-04:00

The last handful of days have been fairly craptastic, so here's a reasonably amusing story from a few days back when things weren't quite so hairy.

(Well, they were a little hairy, I suppose. But literally. And in a gross way. You'll see.)

It's the story of when this picture was taken:
I suppose the picture by itself isn't all that terribly interesting. It's a weird sculpture-thing I happened by in Barcelona, about a hundred meters from the beach, but since Barcelona is FULL of weird sculpture-things, this one hardly stands out, nor is it artistically or otherwise interestingly shot. Like I said - it's not the picture that's interesting. It's what was going on behind my back whilst I was taking the picture that was interesting. And slightly hairy. And oh so very European.

But first, a slight digression. My traveling companions - although not exactly the people I would have hand-picked to spend almost two weeks bouncing around Southern Spain with - were all fairly pleasant. The kids were mostly agreeable, only a few of the adults were twitchy, and only once did a roaring game of Catch Phrase keep me from sleeping, and that's really the most a lady traveling with a teenage tour group can hope for. However, there comes a time when even the most harmless habits of the nicest people start to wear a bit thin, and that is exactly what happened around day three with someone I'm going to call "Catherine."

See, Catherine had this unfortunate habit of calling everything "European." While we were in Europe.

And while it's true that most of the things she deemed "very European" were, indeed, quite European - a view of the Mediterranean Sea, a nine hundred-year-old Mosque-turned Cathedral, a narrow, windy street in the middle of a ancient city IN EUROPE - it just seemed a bit...I don't know....REDUNDANT to call those things European. But enough of Catherine. Back to my story.

Having been to a European beach before, it came as no surprise to me that European women enjoy sunbathing topless. It's very, you know, European to do so. However, my students were wholly unprepared for this fact, so before we were set loose to explore Barcelona, our tour guide explained to the kids that there were three beaches in the city: one where ladies can bear their top-most naughty bits, one where everyone can bear ALL of their naughty bits, and one where homosexuals can bear all their naughty bits. And armed with this knowledge, my students opted to stay far away from the beach entirely. Not so "European," these kids.

BUT, since our group dinner was to be held at a beach-side restaurant, we were forced to the beach all the same. So, we hopped the Metro, rode few stops, hopped off the Metro, and walked above ground for a bit until we happened upon this:

The thing I started telling you about ages and ages ago. But bear in mind that we were NOT YET AT THE BEACH. In fact, we were still a good ten minute walk from ANY beach, even the "ladies can only show their naughty lady top parts" beach, which was the closest of the three. So, I was snapping this picture of that weird, but not uncommonly weird sculpture-thing in Barcelona when, from behind my back, rose a chorus of gasps and shrieks and uproarious laughter from the members of my touring group. Spinning around, I saw a man (a very EUROPEAN man) who had just come from the beach (a very EUROPEAN beach), and was now standing directly in our path, leaning on a park bench wearing nothing but a man purse (a "murse" if you will), a pair of glasses, some sandals, and a look of total indifference. He was paunchy, middle aged, and completely devoid of any tan lines. And let's not forget, quite stunningly nude.

"Look at the cool sculpture-thing, kids!" our tour guide shouted, but it was to no avail. A stark-naked man standing in the middle of the street looking hopelessly bored was WAY more interesting than some stupid weird sculpture. Shouts were shouted, pictures were snapped, videos were taken, and the naked man pretended not to notice. As if it happens to him EVERY DAY. I imagine that in the States he would have been in the clink fairly quickly, but we weren't in the States. We were in Europe. So instead of being arrested, he sauntered down the street, quite devil-may-care about the small riot he had started amongst the American tourists.

I wasn't by Catherine when all this was going down, but I like to imagine that she would have smiled and deemed it all quite European. And yes. Indeed it was.

(And if you're inclined to worry about the extend to which naked man may have wounded my sweet little students, don't. I later asked them to share their favorite moments from the trip, and, inevitably, one of them smiled and said "the beach." I didn't ask her for further elaboration.)

favorite songs of '09: bowerbirds' "northern lights"

2009-07-23T21:47:00.005-04:00

Although I wasn't so much sold on Bowerbirds' newest album, Upper Air, when I first heard it, I did peg it for a grower album. (Meaning, if I listened to it enough, I'd realize how good it really is.) And after many, many hours in the air, on a bus, and waiting in airports, I was allowed the time to realize that my initial speculations were correct. I listened to Upper Air almost exclusively during my recent travels, and now I like it quite a little bit, "Northern Lights" in particular. Enjoy:

(not so) random posts of pretty

2009-07-21T20:54:00.009-04:00

While in Valencia, Spain we had the opportunity to go to L' Oceanografic, and it was so nice I fear it may have ruined me on aquariums forever. Of course I took a bunch of pictures, and although I didn't think any of them would turn out, they ended up being some of the nicest images I have of our trip. I love my camera. I sing it love songs...

soap-a-dope

2009-07-20T17:22:00.009-04:00

Although some dogs can be really quite smelly, ours is - as far as dogs go - a fairly nice-smelling sort. Consequently, she gets bathed about as often as a woman in the Middle Ages would, and trust that this is fine by her and me both. I derive no great joy from wrestling a 50 pound wet, squirmy dog back into my bathtub, and she is of the opinion that being sprayed with water is THE most terrifying thing on the planet. And so it had been about two years since her last bath - long enough for her to start assuming she'll never have to have another one, but not so long ago that she forgot how awful they were. Hence her habit of staring at me awestruck whenever I take a bath, as if to say, "You mean to tell me you're doing this WILLINGLY? Are you OUT OF YOUR EVERLOVING MIND, LADY-WHO-FEEDS-ME-FROM-THE-TABLE?!?!"

BUT, today doggie decided to go rolling around in her own excrement. SO, today doggie got a rare bath:

She was mad at me for a spell.

However, she soon forgot she was supposed to be upset. Dogs are nice that way.