November 5, 2009 at 1:18 am (Books, Eavesdropping, Home, Insomnia, Plays)
Tags: announcements, lists, mysteries, reading, short fiction
Brother Tommy, who is the best, absolutely the best brother in the whole world, just sent over (through his in-laws), 10 precious copies of The Lost Language. Brother’s in-laws were staying in the City, so hubby had to rent a car to pick up the copies (since both our cars are being repaired!) Does anyone want to order? Self can do first come, first serve. She’ll bring the copies to this Saturday’s reading, as well. Then, whoever gets a copy will see that awful first story that had Dearest Mum reeling — BWAH HA HA HA — “Dumpster”
Let’s see, what did self do today?
- She took out the trash.
- She began reading only her second Precious Ramotswe mystery, In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (Her first was The Kalahari Typing School for Men) and is enjoying it so much! It occurs to self that if she wants to absolutely forestall any insomnia, she should perhaps quit reading World War II novels, or any books about the Holocaust, for they always make her angry and sad. She went on quite a bender over the last one she finished, at 3 in the morning, Irene Nemirovsky’s Suite Francaise.
- She watched “Oprah.” Hilary Swank was the guest. It occurs to self that Hilary Swank is exactly the kind of actress Oprah-watchers adore: she takes on roles with uplifting messages. She was married to Chad Lowe for many years and she divorced him without becoming tabloid fodder and is now dating a guy who is not a movie star, not a director, not glamorous. Perhaps self will relent and see “Amelia” after all? Especially as she herself could do with some “uplift” in the dull dull early weeks of November?
Stay tuned, dear blog readers, stay tuned.
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October 27, 2009 at 6:02 am (Conversations, Eavesdropping, Quotes, Surprises)
Yesterday, self learned that Zack was flying Delta/Northwest to Manila. Self’s eyebrows went waaaay high and she couldn’t help exclaiming, “What? After that stunt those two pilots pulled on the flight to Minneapolis/St. Paul?”
Since there was nothing on the Black Box that records activity in the cockpit, self shared with Z her ultimate theory for the pilots’ distraction: They were having wild crazy sex in the cockpit!
And now self learns from this site that the pilots claim they were “busy on their laptops.”
Oh, yeah, uh-huh, right.
Self can only imagine what those two were looking at, that made them miss their target airport by 150 miles.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers, stay tuned.
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October 23, 2009 at 3:58 am (Conversations, Eavesdropping, Home, Surprises)
Tags: interviews
Self’s brain firing on all synapses (which it doesn’t often do, today especially, dear blog readers). She doesn’t know if it’s because, now that hubby is home, the TV is finally off CNN (which self keeps running all day: either that or the Food Network) and is instead on a comedy show with Amy Poehler (“Parks and Recreation”?)
Amy Poehler = Saturday Night Live = Eureka!!!
Self suddenly remembers that while she was driving to downtown Palo Alto to watch “Coco Before Chanel” (Why self should have chosen this movie, instead of the Clive Owen movie that was showing in the theatre next door, is a long long loooong story which self would love to explain, if only she had the time. And, yes, self has not yet explained how she got her car to move, after she drove it home from Doubletree. But that too is a story best reserved for another day), she happened to catch an NPR interview between Terry Gross and ex-SNL member and “Thirty Rock” cast member Tracy Morgan. And, my, was he angry. Or schizoid. Or bi-polar. Whatever. In fact, at one point in the interview, he started to cry, and then he got mad.
“Are you angry?” Terry Gross asked. “Because, uh, you certainly sound angry.”
“I’m not angry!” Tracy Morgan spat out, angrily. “I’m passionate, not angry!”
Are you kidding? He was angry! Self knows angry! And he was not only angry, he was scaaaary!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers, stay tuned.
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October 18, 2009 at 7:07 am (Eavesdropping, Movies, Writers and Others)
Tags: lists, Vanity Fair
Steve Jobs is No. 2 on the list.
Brad and Angelina are No. 8 on the list. (And poor Jennifer Aniston is nowhere)
No. 18 is French President, Nicolas Sarkozy.
No. 27 is “Star Trek” director J. J. Abrams.
No. 29 is Judd Apatow, director of “Funny People” and “Knocked Up.”
No. 40 is Meryl Streep.
No. 47 is Robert de Niro.
No. 49 is Arnold Schwarzenegger.
No. 71 is Dan Brown.
No. 79 is Stephen Colbert.
No. 80 is Rush Limbaugh.
No. 82 is Stephanie Meyer.
Self is extremely depressed that the only novelists who made the list are Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers, stay tuned.
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September 15, 2009 at 3:45 am (Eavesdropping, Home, Movies, Surprises)
Tags: announcements, memories
Some guy who self had never heard of just won the U.S. Open!
This is the guy who self started watching last week, when she noticed a resemblance to Young Spock! She didn’t even know his name! Well, guess who stunned Federer in the U.S. Open finals today? Yup, it was the Quinto guy! No, his name is Juan Martin del Potro, and he is from Argentina. Congratulations, Juan Martin! You are the next tennis dreamboat.
* * *
On a sadder note, Patrick Swayze has died.
Oh, Patrick, self remembers how hot you were in Read the rest of this entry »
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September 15, 2009 at 1:04 am (Eavesdropping, Gardening, Home, Publishers, Quotes, Writers and Others)
Tags: Publishers, Gardening, novels, Poets & Writers, writing process
Self has been meaning to post about this article (in the July/August 2009 issue) in Poets & Writers for quite some time. And the time has finally arrived, for self is just back from filling her trunk with plants from the annual fall sale at Wegman’s Nursery, and she’s just trundled all the 1-gallon specimens to different parts of her yard (This year, self decided to get only plants that were native to Australia: self theorizing that, since the plants are used to drought conditions, they therefore will not require much watering??? Check back this time next year, dear blog reader, to see if self’s li’l experiment bears fruit!), and inspiration seems rather in short supply, after all that work!
And then self got home, very hot (for her car air-conditioner gave out a week or so ago), and after tuning in to adored Bourdain’s “No Reservations,” (Does anyone else find this guy hot? OMG, he is sooo) self settled back on the couch and whipped out the Poets & Writers article.
There were many many things that interested self about this article. For one thing, the lead novelist, one Nicola Keegan, is 44 years old (so, Read the rest of this entry »
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August 31, 2009 at 8:38 pm (Brain Cloud, Eavesdropping, Movies)
Tags: classic movies, lists, Mondays, recession, San Carlos, Vanity Fair
Today self had to work in the Writing Center. She actually had students come in, even though it is practically just the beginning of the semester.
On the way home, self considered stopping by Chocolate Mousse in San Carlos and picking up strawberry shortcake. But she desisted. Thank God.
Back home, self did a little watering, a little browsing of literary websites, a little more writing (a new piece! Yay!). She tried to calculate how long it would take her to reach the City if she took the BART as opposed to if she took Caltrain (for Luis Francia’s play reading at the SF Main Library’s Koret Auditorium, this Saturday). She did a little riffling through Vanity Fair and saw that they had a kind of Hollywood section, much reduced from previous years: The gimmick was that the actors had to pose like characters in one of seven “Depression-era” films (But, hello: no Chris Pine or Zach Quinto, no Jeremy Renner from “The Hurt Locker” or anyone from the cast of “Inglorious Basterds” – what’s up with that?). That is, the films weren’t necessarily shot during the Depression, but the stories had to be set in that period.
Self earlier wrote a rather glib post about who looked good in the pictures and who didn’t, but her mood changed drastically when, around 4:30 p.m., she went back to San Carlos to satisfy her cake craving and found that Chocolate Mousse had gone out of business. Not only that, Claire de Lune, the clothing store next to it, where self used to spend hours browsing the Sale racks, was also out of business (or, at least, had butcher paper all over the display windows and was apparently closed).
So self went home, and looked at her Vanity Fair post in a rather darker mood. Here are the movies that were “re-cast” in the Vanity Fair photo shoot:
- “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” (1969): a classic. The movie where self fell in love with Michael Sarrazin. The Vanity Fair photo featured the following young actors: Kat Dennings (of “Forty-Year-Old Virgin”), Anton Yelchin, Maya Rudolph, John Krasinski, Elizabeth Banks, and Hugh Dancy. Hugh Dancy looked like a 12-year-old. Self tried imagining John Krasinski in the Michael Sarrazin role. Hmm . . . results inconclusive.
- “It Happened One Night” (1934): James Marsden and Rose Byrne
- “Paper Moon” (1973): Josh Duhamel and Elle (younger sister of Dakota) Fanning
- “42nd Street” (1933): a whole line-up, the only actors self recognized were Moon Bloodgood (Yay!) and Rashida Jones
- “Letty Lynton” (1932): Self had never heard of the actress picked to channel Joan Crawford, but her name is Mila Kunis.
- “My Man Godfrey” (1936): Channing “Step Up” Tatum, dressed as a butler and holding a tray of hors d’ouerves, and Amanda “Mamma Mia” Seyfried channeling Carole Lombard (and doing it really well)
- “The Grapes of Wrath” (1940): re-cast with some of the actors in Ang Lee’s “Taking Woodstock,” but the only actors self recognized were Eugene Levy, Emile Hirsch (who, self is convinced, is good in just about everything), and Demetri Martin.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers, stay tuned.
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August 27, 2009 at 11:11 pm (Eavesdropping, Food and Drink, Movies, Opportunities, Other Sites of Interest, Surprises)
Tags: lists, New York Times, sci-fi, Vanity Fair
- io9 for her (sci-fi) movie fixes
- San Carlos Farmers Market for her fresh food fixes
- Chowhound, always and forever
- Costco, because even if she goes in hungry, she always leaves full. Would you believe self if she told you that today, around noon, there was a guy playing Bach on one of their piano displays? (Yes, self made it there, Penny. Car leaked something awful. Self is bringing it to be fixed tomorrow, bright and early – finally! Where oh where were those Martha Stewart chicken slab pies ???)
- “Man in the Mirror” (Michael, oh Michael)
- ZYZZYVA’s Howard Junker. Why? Just because. Because he makes her laugh – ? Is that a good enough reason? (Have you Read the rest of this entry »
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August 27, 2009 at 10:02 pm (Eavesdropping, Quotes, short fiction)
Tags: short story, Stephen King
. . . which self bought for her reading pleasure on the way home from New York at end of June.
She did not pick this magazine out of the magazine rack simply because she was so smart, but because she noticed a fellow traveler holding a copy and, after perusing the T of contents (Tyler Cabot’s “Stories My Father Told Me,” Charles P. Pierce’s “What If Obama’s Out of His Mind?” among others), decided that it looked like pretty good reading.
So, the featured story is by Stephen King. And it is about a hapless writer (Stories about writers are the best kind of stories!) who has wrung eighty pages “out of his old and limping Dell laptop.” And he thinks he might screw up his courage and show the pages to an agent. Which he does. And the agent tells him, why Read the rest of this entry »
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August 21, 2009 at 12:25 am (Books, Eavesdropping, Home, Other Sites of Interest, Surprises)
Tags: book lists, reading, summer
Self will regale dear blog readers with the best books she’s read since June 2009.
Today was quite an eye-popping day (for self), given that Oprah had this guest, a somewhat fetching Brit, host of a show called “Man vs. Wild,” and in a clip introducing his show, he was shown standing on polar ice, stripping off every last shred of clothing, until he was standing there stark nekkid. (His physique was not bad. Self would rate it a B+) Very interesting. This was for the purpose of demonstrating how one can avoid freezing to death if one happens to fall through polar ice. Apparently, it is vitally important that one get dry as soon as possible. Which is impossible if one is wearing wet clothing. Which makes perfect sense to self. Wonder why no one ever thought of that before. (But what of the whipping winds? If one were standing on polar ice, wouldn’t there also be whipping winds? What then? If one had no clothing, self means? But that is a question self supposes is best answered by watching the man’s show)
Then, self read on gawker.com that Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant were Read the rest of this entry »
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