Tickle my brain

Three books I read this year that tickled my brain, that were utterly delightful to read thanks to the way they were written.  A lot of the charm comes from the magnetic narrator.

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
The book is narrated by Death, perhaps the Ultimate Omnipresent Narrator.  A bit fanciful, a lot poignant.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov
The very first paragraph got me hooked, and the writing style of the rest of the book is the same: luscious and linguistically delicious.  The narrator is an admitted pedophile, and yet it's hard not to be drawn into his personality, worldview, and the unraveling of his plot.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
The narrator, or the Watcher, as he refers to himself, is a friend of the titular character.  He drops in f-bombs mixed with Spanglish mixed with Oscar's vernacular, which is nerdy and sesquipedalian. Also read a bit like a modern-day myth or tragedy or fable.  You read and decide which one it is.

Movies this year

 I just checked back to the very first post, with all the rules guidelines I set for myself.  So far I've kept up with all but one of them, which was the one where I would write a book or movie review a week.  Oops.  It's not as if I haven't had enough intake of books or movies this year but that I'm laaazzzy and don't want to write a measley review for an outstanding work of literature or film.

I've already made a list of the books I've read for the first time this year.  This is the list of movies I have seen this year for the first time, and italicized titles signify that I saw the movie in a theater, boldfaced indicates that it was adapted from something else.

In the order that I wrote the list:
1. Rango
2. Dogtooth (2010)
3.  The Fighter (2010)
4. Persepolis (2007) adapted from two graphic novels
5. Spellbound (2004) (documentary)
6. The Brothers Bloom (2009)
7. In the Loop (2010) not quite an adaptation but a spin-off of the tv show The Thick of It
8. Center Stage (2000)
9. Back to the Future, part III (1990)
10. No Strings Attached
11. Despicable Me (2010)
12. Toy Story 3 (2010)
13. Rudo Y Cursi (2009)
14. Easy A (2010) loosely adapted/modernized version of The Scarlet Letter
15.  Bridesmaids
16. X-Men: First Class comic books
17. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
18. Kung Fu Panda 2
19. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 book
20. Never Say Never (2011)
21. Something New (2006)
22. The Hours book
23. The Secret of Kells (2009)
24. Stage Door play
25. Hanna (2011)
26. The Kids are All Right (2010)
27. Thor (2011) comic book
28. Hook (1991) inspired by the story of Peter Pan
29. Mrs. Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2009) book adaptation
30. Iron Jawed Angels inspired by a dissertation of the same name

What I've read so far this year

Children's/Young Adult books
Balliett, Blue                Chasing Vermeer
                                   The Wright 3
Chbosky, Stephen       The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Collins, Suzanne          The Hunger Games trilogy
Creech, Sharon           Replay
Lowry, Lois                The Giver
                                   The Willoughbys
Riordan, Rick              The Red Pyramid
Smith, Roland              I, Q: Independence Hall
Zusak, Markus            The Book Thief
(total: 12)

Graphic novels
Satrapi, Marjane         Embroideries
                                  Persepolis 2
Mignola, Mike            Hellboy series: Seed of Destruction, Wake the Devil, and Darkness Calls
Miller, Frank              300
Moore, Alan and Dave Gibbons  Watchmen
(total: 7)

Plays
Auburn, David             Proof
Henley, Beth               Crimes of the Heart
Miller, Arthur              Death of a Salesman
(total: 3)

Non-fiction
Sedaris, David             Me Talk Pretty One Day
Prejean, Helen             Dead Man Walking
Woolf, Virginia            A Room of One's Own
(total: 3)

Fiction
Atwood, Margaret       The Penelopiad
Brontë, Charlotte         Jane Eyre
Brontë. Emily               Wuthering Heights
Brown, Dan                 The Lost Symbol
Butler, Octavia             Kindred
Christie, Agatha           Evil Under the Sun
                                   Murder on the Orient Express
Dumas, Alexandre       The Three Musketeers
Jong, Erica                  Fear of Flying
Larson, Stieg               The Millenium Trilogy
LeCarre, John             The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
                                   Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
McCarthy, Cormac     The Road
Nabokov, Vladimir    Lolita
Valdes-Rodriguez, Alisa  The Dirty Girls Social Club
Woodrell, Daniel       Winter's Bone
Yamanaka, Lois-Ann   Heads by Harry
(total: 19)


Total from this entire list that have been or will be made into films: 18

Nihilo sanctum estne?

Is nothing sacred?

I think of that line, from the movie Rushmore when thinking about holidays.  I wonder, is Veteran's Day the only pure American holiday?  I mean, sure, other countries have their own version of a Remembrance Day that's set apart to reflect on and honor those who died in wars.  And Veteran's Day, like all other holidays, has become an excuse to have a sale, to have a day off or get paid time and half. 

Lemme 'splain.
- Christmas.  Oh, it's only the most conflated capitalist holiday of the year.  You don't even have to be Christian to celebrate it.  And Jesus wasn't even born in December.

- Thanksgiving.  Once it was my favorite holiday of the year.  But what does it really celebrate? Genocide, or the start of the exploitation and marginalization of the people native to the Americas.

-  Fourth of July.  See: above.

- Memorial Day/Labor Day: The former comes close to Veteran's day but it's overshadowed by the fact that it's become the unofficial start of summer; the latter it's counterpart, the end of summer.

Veteran's day was once Armistice Day, the day that WWI ended, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.  Obviously this year was much more special because it's the eleventh year of the new milleneum and omg-the-ultimate-day-to-make-a-wish-blah-blah-blah.  So, in that sense, the 'true meaning of Veteran's day' was overshadowed.  But I still maintain that this day is still sacred.  But at the same time it's nice that this day was a nice day, that thousands died so that we could take freedom for granted.  So I suppose I am still of two minds about this topic...

Looking back, looking forward; Updates

After hitting the "PUBLISH POST" button at the bottom of my screen here I will have written one blog post a day for an entire month. One down, eleven to go. I can't come up with a cogent argument as to this experiment having a positive effect on my writing, but at least it's gotten me to sit in front of the computer and actually think instead of falling into the routine of cycling through the same websites until I look at the clock and egads how long have I been here I was supposed to find a recipe for falafel and all I've done is watch twelve videosofdogsridingturtlesgaah! Hmm, and apparently it hasn't curbed my proclivity to ramble. I swear I don't typically write run-on sentences! I love grammar and spelling and punctuation!

For the next month I'll make a word bank of 37 Interesting Words and try to use one word in every post, rather than give myself seven days to use seven words. Good thing February's a short month. And it's that the beginning of the next month also includes the beginning of the lunar (not Chinese!) New Year. Thursday marks the start of the Year of the Rabbit. I have hope for the new year, that it'll be better than the last.

* * * * *
Currently reading:
Eleven by Patricia Reilly Giff
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (reading it a second time)

Recently viewed:
Avatar: The Last Airbender, Book I, Vol. I: Water (Nickelodeon TV series)
Underdog (2007)
10 Things I Hate About You (1999) by Gil Junger
Coupling season 2 (BBC)