lightning strikes twice

Movies have taken a back seat for The West Wing, Mad Men and Arrested Development. But we did watch Burn After Reading last night, and it was truly rubbish. Superficial characters and a stupid storyline that tried to be far too clever for its own good. In retrospect I wish we’d watched one of the alternatives: Australia, Body of Lies, Quantum of Solace. Oh well…

Amazing shot from Lebron James. (Side note: Chris Stauber of the Comets hit an even more difficult version of this shot with only .5 of a second left on the clock yesterday night at the Sydney Comets v Hornsby Spiders ABA game). We’ll see this a million times over the next 5 years, but here it is anyway:

Was very happy to finish this book. It wasn’t horribly bad, but it certainly wasn’t very good. Slate magazine has a review that pretty much sums up my feelings about it:

This is an eminently foolish book, by an old man for whom the life of the young has become a grotesque but tantalizing rumor. It is overdrawn, overlong, underconsidered, and filled with at least one forehead-slapping ay caramba per page. (That adds up to 676, by the way. This is the predictable doorstop, perfectly timed for seasonal gifting.) At one point I wrote in its margins, The stupidity here may actually be boundless. And yet … and yet … I kinda liked I Am Charlotte Simmons, ripe for the pyre as it is. I’m glad we have three days here, to help discover how this unsacred monster, with its raft of insecurities and no social graces to speak of, holds some inexplicable power to … well, not charm, exactly. Transfix?

Going in, there’s one thing you can say about Tom Wolfe: At least he’s no worse than Tom Wolfe. About Wolfe’s preposterous claims regarding the novel as a genre, I’ll have more to say in the next couple of days. But his disdain for the overly literary is a real boon to his reviewers. The prose rates a perfect 10 for ease of use; and so, long as this book is, you glide right through it without a hitch. Wolfe will occasionally flash the Nabokovian smile—the shrubbery at Wolfe’s made-up Dupont University is “euonymus,” its cafeteria bathroom emits an “egestive funk”—but mostly he writes in a fat novel, book-of-the-month style, totally uninfected by modernity

Roger Ebert’s Journal: Go Gentle Into That Good Night

I respect kindness in human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don’t respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.

Dear Freddie,

The 4th of May saw the end of your fifth month, and boy, were there a lot of new developments!

By the beginning of this month you had grown out of your car capsule — a whole two months ahead of schedule! So you upgraded to a forward facing seat, which was actually a good thing for you: now you get to look out the window like an adult, and see all the interesting things flying by. And it is a bit easier for mum and dad to see you in the rear vision mirror.

You’ve kept at it with your great all-night sleeping… which means we actually feel very rested, and I’ve been able to start exercising again in the mornings. Also, as you sleep so well, we have baby-sitting friends and family help out more, which means we’ve started reconnecting with the idea of ‘night-life’.

Your first two bottom teeth have begun to cut through, and by the end of the month they were very prominent! And very sharp!

Your rolling has become expert-level — you’re now stringing them together one after the other. I’d reckon in the next couple of months you’ll be consciously using rolling as a way to get from A to B. The other movement development is that you are DESPERATE to crawl. You’ve got arms and legs all going back and forth, but you haven’t figured out lifting your midsection in the air yet. Still more muscles needed, but the motor skills are in place.

You finished off the month with your first plane trip! We went down to Melbourne for a few days, for mum to do some ‘public appearances’. You flew down with dad, and won the hearts of dozens of ladies on the trip. Such a well behaved little boy! A highlight was when you got to watch mum at her workshop — you could hear her voice over the PA system, but as she was in front of a big crowd, you weren’t sure where to look. Where are you mama??

You’re such a good little kid, and we’re so proud of you!

Love, Mum and Dad

by John Kennedy Toole

A comedic Pulitzer winning novel about Ignatius Reilly, his mother, Officer Mancuso, Myrna Minkoff, Levy Pants (with Miss Trixie and Mr Gonzalez), the Night of Joy (featuring Lana Lee, Darlene and Jones) and all the hilarious antics that happen to these people and in these places. Ignatius is a modern day Don Quixote, a bumbling fool who manages to devastate everything he touches.

Hands down one of my favourite novels of all time. Truly classic writing, that I imagine will provide lots of laughs and new material for several re-reads.