Three sentence movie reviews: Jolene

I loathed this movie because I could tell it was supposed to be a sort of “actor-flexing-her-acting-muscle” kind of film.  But because the actor was a women it was a troubling story of a sexually abused girl making the same bad choice over and over again in a frustrating way that had a lot of the actor in question being naked and not much other character growth.  I can see that picking a woman and watching all of her movies is a totally different experience than watching the films of a man.

Cost:  free from library
Where watched: at home.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2010/jolene_ver2.html

Skirt project

It seems that all that writing during NaNoWriMo pushed me in a “make something we can touch, dammit” direction and so here I am constructing a handkerchief skirt.

My two kinds of material.
 

This material was very difficult to make do exactly what I wanted to do.  But I persevered.
 
I made bias tape for the first time.  It was easy.  But I made too much the first round.
 
Prepping the waistband.

Stay tuned for the final product.

Requiem: Fox 40 Classic


This is not a picture of my trusty Fox 40 classic which I have owned since the summer of 1994.  There is no picture of that beloved whistle because after years of service, I lost it.  This is the replacement.  The original was black.  In 1994 I think they only came in black, unlike today when everyone can get their favorite color.  I bought the whistle the summer I was a lifeguard at Wild Waters, which was an awful place to be a lifeguard.  We rotated from station to station all day long, spending 7.5 hours per day standing in the sun.  If I had gotten a job at a public pool I would have been outside for an hour at a time, maximum.  If I ever develop skin cancer, I will blame Wild Waters.

When guarding the water slides we had to indicate when children could go, by motioning them forward as we watched to ensure the person in front of them was far enough along that they wouldn’t collide. Because of that,  “Can I go yet?” is permanently in my book as the stupidest question ever.  “If you could go yet, I would have motioned you forward.” I told more than one child in an exasperated voice after hearing the question for the fiftieth time that day.

I bought the Fox 40 Classic because the regular old whistle I was issued did not stand up to the rigors that is guarding at a water park.  Watching the pool portion was the worst as it was a frothing mass of unsupervised children, many of whom didn’t hear me when I whistled at them to stop whatever rule-breaking activity they were doing.  I learned quickly that if you blow a normal whistle too hard it makes a very wimpy “cccaaaa” noise that inspires laughter from the few that can hear it, while the hoodlums I was whistling at carried on with their rule breaking ways.

The Fox 40 Classic, one of my fellow lifeguards told me, never does that because there is no ball in the whistle.  The air travels through chambers.  It’s pretty darn loud too.  I ponied up the then-exorbitant fee of $5.95 for my own and, wow.  That whistle gets attention.

There was only one summer of life guarding for me, but I kept the whistle around.  When I started working at an elementary school and added “recess monitor” to my duties, I pulled out my trusty Fox 40 classic.  It’s been causing children to cover their ears when I blow it at recess for over six years and it deserved more than to be lost somewhere between the playground and one of the K/1 classrooms.  But that’s what it got.  Sorry trusty friend.  

Books read in November 2012

Full-on Mock Printz prep this month. Plus a great non-Mock-Printz-YA Novel which will probably be a top 5 favorite for this year.  And Dennis Lehane’s new book, which I didn’t like very much, alas.

Read
The Brides of Rollrock Island
Margo Lanagan
Read for Mock Pritnz
This is that kind of fiction that I think is supposed to be “literary” because there are a lot of words, and pretty, carefully written words at that, but not a lot of explaining because, I guess, the author thinks the reader should be smart enough to figure things out.  But when it’s not really clear to me from the beginning what is going on, it’s hard for me to attach to the book.  Also, I didn’t find the characters very distinct from  one another, so I was always a bit confused.  That said, there are a few pages in the last quarter of the book that are beautifully written and if you “need” to finish the book, just keep waiting for them. They might make the whole book worth it.

Every Day
David Levithan
A very clever plot device (main character wakes up in a different body every day) executed brilliantly by Mr. Levithan.  This book questions the nature of gender, love, brain chemistry, sibling relationships, family relationships, body type, race, sexual orientation and probably other things I’m forgetting.  I couldn’t figure out how he was going to end the book in a way that made everything okay, but he did it.  I will be recommending this for years, so you should go and read it now so I don’t have to harangue you.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Emily M. Danforth
Read for Mock Printz
I recently lamented that all the up-and-coming actors in my age demographic have either become “too old” and disappeared (mostly the women) or have become established actors, full of gravitas (mostly the men.)  However, it seems the novelists in my age demographic are just now really getting started. Ms. Danforth would be a novelist in my age demographic who has set her story in the same period (more or less) when I attended high school which had a lot to do with my enjoyment of this book.

But!  I also liked that it was set in a tiny Montana town where a friend lived and worked after college and I have even visited that town so I could picture it in my mind’s eye.

And!  I loved it was a coming-of-age novel about a lesbian as those are in short supply (at least I think so, I don’t come across them often.)

Also! I loved the writing–at least three passages made it to my quotes page–and the characters were great. Danforth is quite good at capturing little details that made the story come alive.  The hair tucking of the young minister who looked like Jesus, or Eddie Vedder was one such example. This was one of those books I liked so much I was recommending it to people before I had even finished it.


The Quitter
Harvey Pekar
Read for Book Group
Eh.  It’s a graphic novel, which aren’t my medium.  And I’m not the biggest fan of Harvey Pekar’s schtick.  I thought the art was a good fit for the time period, but I didn’t love this book.

Live by Night
Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane, here are the things you do very well as an author:  You create fabulous characters, fully-formed, flawed, smart and smart-assed.  You write plots that are interesting, complicated, a bit dark and have a social justice bent to them.  These things are very good and will keep me always reading your books. But you know what you do better than everyone else?  Star-crossed love.  And when your book, interesting as it might be and this one was, does not have star-crossed love I feel a great sadness and find myself feeling a bit cheated.  So you maybe you want to move away from star-crossed love.  Okay, I’ll still read your stories.  But I’ll be patiently awaiting your next book with star-crossed love.

Ask the Passengers
A.S. King
Hey look, it’s another book about a girl who likes a girl!  And it deals with that whole “questioning” issue.  That’s a good thing.  I think there is a lot of questioning going on.  Overall, I thought this was a pretty successful book. The main character’s relationships with her sister, family, friends and girlfriend felt pretty true-to-life.  The “ask the passengers” device never stopped feeling like a device.  But I kind of liked it.

Started and did not finish
Moonbird
Read for Mock Printz
I get a big heavy feeling in my chest when I read about species in peril because it seems to be too big of a problem for anyone to solve and the whole thing feels hopeless.  This book is about the amazing journey of a bird, but  it’s also about the trouble his fellow birds are in.  I don’t know what to do about that and dealt with my despair by putting the book down and never picking it up again.

Also, I found the prose rather breathless.  And that annoyed me.

Just when I was ahead of schedule


I wash my face with a half-and-half solution of castor oil and jojoba oil.  I just had mixed up a new batch two days ago.  But sadly, I put it on an unstable surface in the medicine cabinet so look what happened when I opened the door.  Happily, it all ended up on the counter and was pretty easy to clean up.  It still set me back a good ten minutes, though.

Three sentence movie reviews: Argo

I really liked this movie because I expected it to be very dramatic and tense and it was, but it was also quite funny in places.  This made it a great night at the movies.  I also remembered why I originally preferred Ben Affleck to Matt Damon when the two of them became famous.*

Cost:  Free due to passes.
Where watched:  Regal City Center Stadium 12.

*Ben Affleck has those fabulous sad eyes and is better looking in general.  But then he started starring in all those horrible movies and there was the trip to rehab and the best-forgotten Bennifer brouhaha.  Whereas Matt Damon kept his nose clean and just kept making quality film after quality film.  But now that Affleck is directing himself, his acting seems much better and doesn’t distract me from his good looks.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2012/argo.html